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I. N. H. Beahm 



S. N. McCann 



Program Committee 



'I 

Two Centuries of the 
Church of the Brethren 

Or the Beginnings of the Brotherhood 



Bicentennial Addresses at the 
Annual Conf erence,Held at Des 
Moines, Iowa, June 3-11, 1908 



Published by Authority 
of Conference 



Brethren Publishing House 

Elgin, Illinois 
1908 



/\^ 



\1« 



^"^ . ^%.o^ 



LltinARY of CONGRESS 

Tv/c Copies Received 

0£C 24 SS08 

CopyrikHU Lr.try 
CLASS O— XXc, f^o. 



Copyright by Brethren Publishing House, Elgin, Illinois. 

1908. 

All Rights Reserved. 



Preface 

Four queries were sent to the Annual Conference of 
1907 asking that the two hundredth anniversary of the 
fuller organization of the Church of the Brethren might 
be suitably commemorated at the Conference of 1908. The 
queries were placed in the hands of a committee, and their 
report, which follows, was adopted by the Conference and 
a Program Committee appointed. 

(1) We recommend the appointment of a Program Commit- 
tee for the Bicentennial commemoration to be observed at the 
Annual Conference of 1908, composed of five members judiciously 
distributed in the Brotherhood, whose duties and privileges shall 
be as follows: 

(a) To choose subjects covering the various phases of our 
church life and growth up to the present time. 

(b) To provide competent speakers in full sympathy with 
the principles of the church. 

(c) To publish the program not later than January 1, 1908. 

(d) To have for use of these exercises such time preceding 
the business session as may be necessary; the usual missionary, 
Sunday-school, and educational discourses may constitute an ap- 
propriate part of said Bicentennial program. 

(2) In preparing the program the committee is 

(a) To keep first and foremost in view the praise and glory 
of our Father for what he has done through the church (Deut. 
32: 7-14). 

(b) To maintain faithfully the principles and practice of the 
church for which she has hitherto stood. 

(c) To stimulate to greater zeal in the various religious 
activities of the church and hasten the fulfillment of the Master's 
great command 

(3) The Brethren Publishing House shall provide for the 
publication of these addresses in convenient book form. 

Committee on Bicentennial Program: D. L. Miller, G. N. 
Falkenstein, I. N. H. Beahm, M. G. Brumbaugh, S. N. McCann. 



n,- 



i PREFACE 

The Program Committee met at Elizabethtown, Penn- 
sylvania, October 6, 1907, and arranged the following pro- 
gram for the Bicentennial Meeting of the Brethren Church 
to be held in connection with the Annual Meeting at Des 
Moines, Iowa, June 3-11, 1908, being the two hundredth 
anniversary of the birth of the Schwarzenau congregation, 
and the more complete organization of the Brethren 
Church : 

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 3, 7 P. M. 
Moderator, Andrew Hutchison, Kansas. 

Devotional Exercises, David E. Price, Illinois. 
Topic — Church Polity, ,.I. D. Parker, Indiana. 

THURSDAY, JUNE 4, 7 P. M. 
Moderator, John Herr, Pennsylvania. 

Devotional Exercises, Joseph Amick, Illinois. 
Topic — The Work of Women in the Church, 

T. S. Moherman, Ohio. 
Adaline Hohf Beery, Pennsylvania. 
FRIDAY, JUNE 5, 7 P. M. 
Moderator, J. H. Longanecker, Pennsylvania. 

Devotional Exercises, S. M. Goughnour, Iowa. 

Topic — Our Pioneer Preachers, J. H. Moore, Illinois. 

SATURDAY, JUNE 6, 10 A. M. 
Moderator, P. S. Miller, Virginia. 

Devotional Exercises, Jesse Stutsman, Ohio. 
Topic — The Voice of God Through the Church: 

(1) What the Church Has Heard from God, 

L. W. Teeter, Indiana. 

(2) What the Church Has Done with the Message, 

J. W. Lear, Illinois. 
SATURDAY, JUNE 6, 2 P. M. 
Moderator, John Zuck, Iowa. 

Devotional Exercises, W. S. Reichard, Maryland. 
Topic — The Philanthropies of the Church: 

(1) The Church's Care for the Aged and Orphans, 

Frank Fisher, Indiana. 

(2) The Gish Fund and the Care of Superannuated Ministers 

and Missionaries. — J. E. Miller, Illinois. 



D. L. MILLER 6 

SATUBDAT, JUNE 6, 7 P. M. 
Moderator, Peter Keltner, Illinois, 

Devotional Exercises, Edmund Forney, California. 
Topic — The Educational Work of the Church: 

(1) Early Educational Activities. — S. Z. Sharp, Colorado. 

(2) Present Educational Activities. — W. B. Yount, Virginia. 

SUNDAY, JUNE 7, 10 A. M. 
Moderator, D. L. Miller, Illinois. 

Devotional Exercises, S. R. Zug, Pennsylvania. 
Topic — The Church in the Fatherland: 

(1) The Conditions in Germany about 1708, 

M. G. Brumbaugh, Pennsylvania. 

(2) The Birth of the Schwarzenau Congregation and its 

Activities. — T. T. Myers, Pennsylvania. 

SUNDAY, JUNE 7, 2 P. M. 
Moderator, J. S. Mohler, Kansas. 

Devotional Exercises, A. B. Barnhart, Maryland. 
Topic — The Church in Colonial America: 

(1) The Mother Church at Germantown and her Children, 

G. N. Falkenstein, Pennsylvania. 

(2) The Church Before the Revolution, 

J. W. Wayland, Virginia. 

SUNDAY, JUNE 7, 7 P. M. 
Moderator, L. T. Holsinger, Indiana. 

Devotional Exercises, S. S. Ulrey, Indiana. 
Topic — The Church in the United States: 

(1) The Growth to the Mississippi. — J, G. Royer, Illinois. 

(2) The Growth to the Pacific. — Edward Frantz, Kansas. 

MONDAY, JUNE 8, 10 A. M. 
Moderator, D. L. Mohler, Missouri. 

_ Devotional Exercises, I. J, Rosenberger, Ohio. 
Topic — The Sunday-school Work of the Church: 

(1) The Importance of the Sunday-school Work, 

I. B. Trout, Illinois. 

(2) The Growth of the Sunday-school Movement, 

Elizabeth Myer, Pennsylvania. 

MONDAY, JUNE 8, 2 P. M. 

Moderator, S. F. Sanger, Indiana. 

Devotional Exercises, Uriah Bixler, Maryland. 



6 PREFACE 

Topic — The Missionary Work of the Church: 

(1) The Development of Missions in the Church, 

Galen B. Royer, Illinois. 

(2) The Influence of Missions on the Church, 

William M. Howe, Pennsylvania. 

MONDAY, JUNE 8, 7 P. M. 
Moderator, W. R. Deeter, Indiana. 

Devotional Exercises, J. T. Myers, Pennsylvania. 
Topic — The Publications of the Church: 
History of Growth and Development, 

H. B. Brumbaugh, Pennsylvania. 

TUESDAY, JUNE 9, 7 P. M. 
Moderator, W. R. Deeter, Indiana. 

Devotional Exercises, J. Calvin Bright, Ohio. 
Topic — What the Church Stands For — Her Doctrines, 

H. C. Early, Virginia. 

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 11, 7 P. M. 
Moderator, David Shorb, North Dakota. 

Devotional Exercises, Uriah Shick, Nebraska. 
Topic — The Church and the Great Moral Issues of Civilization — 
Liberty, Temperance, Divorce, Peace, etc., 

Daniel Hays, Virginia. 
THURSDAY, JUNE 11, 7 P. M. 
Mioderator, the Presiding Officer of Annual Meeting. 

Devotional Exercises, Isaac Frantz, Ohio. 
Topic — The Higher Spiritual Life of the Church, 

A. C. Wieand, Illinois. 

SUGGESTIONS. 

1. That in preparing the program for the Sunday school to 
be held in the tabernacle, on Sunday morning, those in charere 
keep in mind the central thought of the entire service, — God's 
goodness to us. 

2. That on the fourth Lord's Day after Whitsunday a memo- 
rial, thanksgiving and consecration service be held in every con- 
gregation in the Brotherhood. It would be well to precede this 
service by a week of special fasting and prayer. 

Under the favor of Divine Providence, the program 
was fully carried out and with four exceptions the speakers 
all took their part in the work. Brother H. C. Early, having 



D. L. MILLER 7 

been elected moderator of the Conference, was unable to 
take his place and brother D. D. Culler of Illinois kindly 
read his address. Brother P. B. Fitzwater of Indiana rendered 
the same service in behalf of Bro. J. W. Wayland of Virginia 
who was detained at home, and Sister Adaline Hohf Beery was 
taken ill after reaching Des Moines and was not well 
enough to give her address. Brother Walter B. Yount of 
Virginia, owing to pressing duties at home, did not find 
time to prepare an address and Brother J. S. Flory of the 
same State took his place on the program. 

The meetings at which the addresses were given were 
largely attended and it was the general consensus of opin- 
ion that the Conference of 1908 with its bicentennial pro- 
gram was one of the most interesting and at the same time 
deeply spiritual Annual Meetings held within the memory 
of those present. God was with his people and richly 
blessed them. 

In compliance with decision of Conference the ad- 
dresses have been collected and are now presented to the 
Brotherhood in this permanent form. The addresses are 
not given in the order in which they were delivered. It 
was thought best to place them in order historically as 
nearly as possible. The book will prove an important ad- 
dition to our church literature and its historical value will 
be appreciated by all who are interested in securing ac- 
curate knowledge as to the records of the past. The book is 
sent out with the hope that it will, under God's blessing, 
be helpful to the cause we love. 




Introduction 

The formal organization of the Schwarzenau congregation 
in Germany in 1708, marked the beginning of the Church of 
the Brethren as a complete, independent religious body. 
The dispersion of this pious band of faithful leaders to 
America and to Holland, in 1719, and the final immigration 
of the Holland exiles to America in 1729, mark the general 
outlines of a movement, born in the very center of relig- 
ious persecution and Christian sacrifice, and that, in Amer- 
ica, has spread from ocean to ocean until it is no loud boast 
to exclaim, " Behold v^hat God hath wrought." 

To some who love the church and have a reverent re- 
gard for its splendid record of devotion to " pure religion 
and undefiled," the thought of a proper observance of the bi- 
centennial took the form of a memorial to Annual Meeting 
of 1906. For some reason that body did not approve the 
plan. A year later, at Los Angeles, the meeting did approve 
the plan and named a committee of five brethren to formu- 
late a program for the proper observance of the important 
anniversary. The committee met and arranged the pro- 
gram carried out at Des Moines, Iowa, in connection with 
the Annual Conference of the church for 1908. The hope of 
the committee was that the anniversary services would in 
a definite way quicken in the membership a deeper love for 
the church, and at the same time call the attention of the 
country at large to the pious purposes and the primitive 
Christianity so modestly but earnestly lived by the com- 
municants of the Brotherhood. We believe these ends 

9 



10 INTRODUCTION 

have been accomplished to the welfare of the church and 
the glory of God. 

The addresses on this occasion, at the suggestion of 
Elder D. L. Miller, are to appear herewith in the form of a 
memorial volume. This is an excellent thing to do. Broth- 
er Miller, whose splendid devotion to all that is best in the 
welfare of the church, has felt with others how important 
it is to keep careful records of all important movements of 
the church. Who knows what the Brotherhood of a cen- 
tury hence will miss should this anniversary go unrecorded? 
When one undertakes to reach back a century or two for 
records and for accurate data, the worth of such a volume 
as this is at once apparent. 

It is to be regretted that Alexander Mack had no lov- 
ing disciple John to write the story of the years preceding 
the memorable meeting in 1708. There are gaps in the detail 
of that early record that we shall increasingly regret. It 
is, however, a matter of profound gratitude that the general 
movement is known, and that records of undoubted au- 
thenticity prove the general movements of the early church 
in Europe. The manuscript diary of the second Alexander 
Mack, now in my library, tells the story with becoming 
modesty, but with an accuracy that all contemporary rec- 
ords amply confirm. Thus the statements made in this 
volume relative to the mother congregation and its branches 
may be regarded as accurate history. 

The beginnings of the church in America are better 
known than are the beginnings of almost any other relig- 
ious body of Colonial America. From the outset, the church 
was in the forefront of all religious progress. Its members, 
more than any others, taught religion to the German pio- 
neers of Colonial America. Under such leaders as the two 
Macks, Becker, Sauer, the Prices, Beissel, Miller, Hilde- 
brand, Martin, Stoll, Letterman, the two Urners and others, 
the church enjoyed the unique distinction of contributing 



M. G. BRUMBAUGH 11 

more leadership to religious progress than any other equal 
group before the Revolutionary War. The essential doc- 
trines of their faith were dear to them. They not only 
lived a fitting testimony to the faith they expressed but they 
put forth unequaled enterprise in spreading their doctrines 
to the remotest pioneer's cabin home. Wherever the Ger- 
man language was used, from Rhode Island to Georgia, 
they were known and respected. One can pray no larger 
blessing on the church for the next century than the same 
spirit of religious prudence, zeal and enterprise that ani- 
mated the Colonial congregations. 

This early church was emphatically a teaching body. 
It stood for the spread of the pure Gospel of Jesus Christ 
to all people. The best tradition of the schurch v/ill find 
reincarnation in the Brotherhood of today when we compre- 
hend clearly the duty of going into all the world and preach- 
ing the Gospel as did our forefathers in the faith. Whence 
arises the imperative need of larger support to all forms 
of mission activity, to Sunday schools and prayer-meeting 
services, to Bible schools and to colleges. The Mother 
Church acted on the assumption that God had given to them 
a great responsibility, that of making the truth known and 
accepted by the whole world. To this divine function we 
must direct all our energies, and pledge to it our fortunes, 
our lives and our sacred honor. 

There is occasion for supreme thankfulness that all the 
leaders in the early church were not only men of unusual 
intellectual power, but they were men of great piety. They 
had, as Mack insisted they should, counted the cost and 
chosen their membership in the church only after prayerful 
and patient pondering upon the teaching of the Master. 
To them the church was a family of kindred souls holding 
In sacred regard the common love they all bore for the 
blessed Christ. This is the glory and hope of his people. 
Let the membership of the future study reverently and thor- 



12 INTRODUCTION 

oughly the sacred story of those whom God by his spirit 
led to establish here on his footstool a church which this 
year concludes two centuries of noble living and of worthy 
testimony to the power and purity of the Gospel of Jesus 
Christ. M. G. Brumbaugh. 

Philadelphia, July lo, ipo8. 



Contents 



CHAPTER ONE. 
Topic — The Church in the Fatherland: 

(1) The Conditions in Germany about 1708, 

M. G. Brumbaugh, Pennsylvania. 

(2) The Birth of the Schwarzenau Congregation and its 

Activities. — T. T. Myers, Pennsylvania. 

CHAPTER TWO. 
Topic — The Church in Colonial America: 

(1) The Mother Church at Germantown and her Children, 

G. N. Falkenstein, Pennsylvania. 

(2) The Church Before the Revolution, 

J. W. Wayland, Virginia. 

CHAPTER THREE. 
Topic — The Church in the United States: 

(1) The Growth to the Mississippi. — J. G. Royer, Illinois. 

(2) The Growth to the Pacific. — Edward Frantz, Kansas. 

CHAPTER FOUR. 

Topic — The Voice of God Through the Church: 

(1) What the Church Has Heard from God, 

L. W. Teeter, Indiana. 

(2) What the Church Has Done with the Message, 

J. W. Lear, Illinois. 

CHAPTER FIVE. 
Topic — What the Church Stands For — Her Doctrines, 

H. C. Early, Virginia. 

CHAPTER SIX. 
Topic — Church Polity, I. D. Parker, Indiana. 

CHAPTER SEVEN. 
Topic — ^The Higher Spiritual Life of the Church, 

A. C. Wieand, Illinois. 
13 



14 CONTENTS 

CHAPTER EIGHT. 
Topic — The Church and the Great Moral Issues of Civilization — 
Liberty, Temperance, Divorce, Peace, etc., 

Daniel Hays, Virginia. 

CHAPTER NIKE. 
Topic — The Work of Women in the Church, 

T. S. Moherman, Ohio. 

Adaline Hohf Beery, Pennsylvania. 

CHAPTER TEN. 

Topic — The Sunday-school Work of the Church: 

(1) The Importance of the Sunday-school Work, 

I. B. Trout, Illinois. 

(2) The Growth of the Sunday-school Movement, 

Elizabeth Myer, Pennsylvania. 

CHAPTER ELEVEN. 

Topic — The Missionary Work of the Church: 

(1) The Development of Missions in the Church, 

Galen B. Royer, Illinois. 

(2) The Influence of Missions on the Church, 

William M. Howe, Pennsylvania. 

CHAPTER TWELVE. 

Topic — The Educational Work of the Church: 

(1) Early Educational Activities. — S. Z. Sharp, Colorado. 

(2) Present Educational Activities. — ^J. S. Flory, Virginia. 

CHAPTER THIRTEEN. 
Topic — The Publications of the Church: 
History of Growth and Development, 

H. B. Brumbaugh, Pennsylvania. 

CHAPTER FOURTEEN. 
Topic — The Philanthropies of the Church: 

(1) The Church's Care for the Aged and Orphans, 

Frank Fisher, Indiana. 

(2) The Gish Fund and the Care of Superannuated Ministers 

and Missionaries. — J. E. Miller, Illinois. 

CHAPTER FIFTEEN. 

Topic — Our Pioneer Preachers, J. H. Moore^ Illinois. 



Chapter One 
The Church in the Fatherland 




M. G. Brumbaugh 



Part One 
The Conditions in Germany About 1708 

By M. G. Brumbaugh 

I will read as a basis of my remarks the first scripture 
used in the formal organization of the Church of the Breth- 
ren, — a portion of scripture that was the basis of the organ- 
ization of the church, used by Alexander Mack just before 
the administration of the ordinance of baptism two hun- 
dred years ago, and used always in Germany when anyone 
was a candidate for baptism and admission into the church. 
You will find the words in Luke 14: 25-33. 

Now there went with him great multitudes: and he turned, 
and said unto them, If any man cometh unto me, and hateth not 
his own father, and mother, and wife, and children, and 
brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also he cannot be 
my disciple. Whosoever doth not bear his own cross, and come 
after me, cannot be my disciple. For which of you, desiring to 
build a tower, doth not first sit down and count the cost, whether 
he have wherewith to complete it? Lest haply, when he hath 
laid a foundation, and is not able to finish, all that behold begin 
to mock him, saying, this man began to build, and was not able 
to finish. Or what king, as he goeth to encounter another king 
in war, will not sit down first and take counsel whether he is able 
with ten thousand to meet him that cometh against him with 
twenty thousand? Or else, while the other is yet a great way off, 
he sendeth an embassage, and asketh conditions of peace. So 
therefore whosoever he be of you that renounceth not all that he 
hath, he cannot be my disciple. 

With this text the formal birth of the 'Church of the 
Brethren occurred two centuries ago, and the particular part 
of the text which led to its selection were th*e three words 
2 17 



18 CONDITIONS IN GERMANY 

— " Count the cost." These early Brethren living in a tur- 
bulent time, and taking a step the ultimate end of which no 
human mind could foresee, certainly counted the cost when 
they broke away from the forms of religious activity then 
known in Germany, including Pietism, and organized a sep- 
arate and independent and what is to us a most precious 
church. 

This sentiment was so strongly impressed upon the 
Brethren that Alexander Mack composed the first hymn 
for the church based upon this text and beginning — 

" Count the cost, says Jesus." 

This hymn was sung for many years at every baptis- 
mal scene connected with the Church of the Brethren 
as one of the precious heritages which the church unfor- 
tunately has not prized, as for example, the Lutherans prize 
their great founder's hymn — 

"A mighty fortress is our God." 

We have met on this solemn anniversary to commem- 
orate an important event in a far-away land two hundred 
years ago. For it was in the " Fatherland " at the incon- 
spicuous village of Schwarzenau in Hesse-Cassel that the 
formal organization of the church so dear to us was per- 
fected by pious souls whose religious lineage twines ten- 
derly through the ages and attaches to the cross of Jesus 
Christ. This event — the establishment of a religious body 
whose only creed is the Holy Bible, and whose only guide 
is the Holy Spirit, and whose only head is the Christ of 
God — is unique in the history of the world. It is significant 
that while persecution fast quenched the holy zeal of our 
ancestors in the Valley of the Rhine, their descendants, 
fleeing first to Holland, the refuge of the English Puritans, 
came finally to the land we love — to the Atlantic slope in 
Pennsylvania and thence has swept over this country and is 
now rekindling in the home land and in the far Orient and 



M. G. BRUMBAUGH 19 

the islands that God has lifted from the mighty deep, 
until it is fair to assume that, wisely guided, this faith shall 
cover at last all countries as the waters cover the mighty 
deep. 

What virility is in this movement that it should grow 
through the centuries and hold in its grasp the abiding 
love and loyalty of an increasing army of followers ? There 
can be but one answer — its strength lies in its loyalty and 
its reliance upon Almighty God. Under what conditions 
did it have its beginning as an organized movement ? What 
was the atmosphere its founders breathed? Upon what so- 
cial and religious basis did Alexander Mack and his asso- 
ciates confidently build? 

To answer these inquiries let us review the conditions 
that prevailed in Germany at the time the v(raters were 
stirred, and the Spirit of God acknowledged in the river 
Eder as, in former days, in the river Jordan, that this act was 
approved by our common Creator and Father. 

From the days of the Lutheran Reformation Germany 
became the center of religious agitation. After a thousand 
years of unchecked control the Catholic Church found in 
the spirit of Protestantism a worthy rival. This influence 
may be traced to the eleventh century and to the bold, de- 
fiant, scholastic leader, Peter Abelard of Paris, pupil of the 
celebrated William of Champeaux. It was Abelard's defense 
of human reason as opposed to church dogma that led to 
the development of Scholasticism and to the creation of 
European Universities. From this sprang the Reformation 
under Martin Luther and the scholarly isolation of Erasmus. 

These men agreed in one essential principle — religion 
must be an appeal to the individual human reason. In due course 
of time this principle led to a general upheaval of religious 
organizations. The supremacy of the Catholic Church in 
Germany was gone : and, as the monks declared, *' Luther 
had hatched the egg that Erasmus had laid." 



20 CONDITIONS IN GERMANY 

When Germany found itself disenthralled, all sorts of 
religious organizations began to appear. From the un- 
yielding creed of Catholicism to the utter abrogation of all 
creed and all organization, the whole gamut of doctrines 
ran its unchecked way. Each faction became intolerant 
of all others and persecution, plunder and war followed in 
swift succession to compel all dissenters to the acceptance 
of now this, and now another form of worship. The out- 
come of all this was the fateful thirty years' war (1618- 
1648) which involved all continental Europe. 

The Valley of the Rhine became the theater of war, 
and the pious Germans suffered the horrors of continual 
persecution, rapine and murder. The treaty of Westpha- 
lia (1648) sometimes called the treaty of Miinster, ended 
the bloody struggle and leagued the Catholic, Lutheran, 
and Reformed Churches into a new persecuting force. 
Other wars, notably the wars of Frederick, lasting from 
1620 to 1688, followed by the French wars, made the Rhine 
country from 1618 to 1748, a continuous field of carnage. 
This experience of generations made these Germans a war- 
weary and a war-hating people. 

The three state churches denied to all others the right 
to exist in the German Empire. Whoever found his relig- 
ious convictions running counter to these ; whose faith was 
of a different sort; who interpreted his Bible in another 
sense; who worshiped God in his own way; found life a 
burden and a cross. Church and state vied in their zeal 
to persecute dissenters. The harmless Mennonites, the 
God-fearing Schwenkfelders, the Pietists, and the Mystics 
were alike reviled, persecuted, and regarded as fit subjects 
for insane asylums or prisons. What happened to these 
in the closing years of the seventeenth century became also 
the fate of the Taufers in the opening third of the eighteenth 
century. 

These people are the most ardent product of the 



M. G. BRUMBAUGH 21 

reformation. They did not stop on middle ground with Lu- 
ther, Calvin, and Zwingli. They carried the spirit of pro- 
testation to the acceptance of the maxim: ''No exercise of 
force in religion." This was fundamental in the belief and 
practice of the Taufers or German Baptist Church. From 
this they were led logically to define conclusions at vari- 
ance with the state churches, — conclusions for which they 
suffered all forms of irreligious persecution, but which they 
heroically wrought into a new and unique body of truth. 
Let us see what this principle of non-coercion gave the 
church. 

(1) To compel anyone to join or to leave the church 
of Christ is an exercise of force. Children are compelled, 
with no show of reason or desire on their part, to join the 
church. Hence infant baptism is at variance with their 
faith. The church is at the outset logically arrayed against 
infant baptism, 

(2) To compel by law an individual to take an oath 
is not only contrary to the teaching of Jesus, but it is a 
violation of the sacred rights of a people whose religious 
tenets decry all force. Hence the church is at the outset 
logically opposed to taking the oath. 

(3) War is a violent interference with the rights of 
others. It imposes unwilling burdens upon people. It is, 
therefore, wrong, and the church at the outset is logically 
opposed to war. 

(4) The injunction of Christ is one thing, the power of 
prince or ecclesiastic another. The might of the state has 
no right to interfere with the religious belief of the indi- 
vidual. Hence at the outset the church logically opposed 
state religions, sustained freedom of conscience, and exalted 
allegiance to God above allegiance to riders. 

(5) In matters of faith each individual is free to follow 
his own convictions. Hence they resented all persecution 
and themselves never persecuted a single soul. Bullinger, 



22 CONDltlONS IN GERMANY 

their great reviler, says they taught " that the government 
shall not and may not assume control of questions of re- 
ligion or faith." 

Uuon these God-fearing, conscientious people fell the 
full power of church and state. Their sufferings were aw- 
ful. The flaming torch of persecution nightly lighted the 
valley of the Rhine for a hundred miles. The agonized 
prayers of burning saints were heard on every side. Sturdy, 
devout, God-strengthened men and women these, who he- 
roically suffered and died for the religion they loved. There 
v^ere no cowards in the procession that marched through 
howling mobs to the stake. 

But the principle of non-coercion like all other funda- 
mental principles of the church came not alone from a re- 
action against a state-enforced religion. It was also due 
to the pious purpose of the great souls that founded the 
church. Driven from all participation in the established 
churches of Germany they turned to the Book of God as 
their sole and sufficient guide. In this message from 
Heaven they found the same principle. The religion of 
Jesus is an appeal to the Will. It is a call for voluntary 
service. There can be no force, no coercion, no compulsion 
in the Master's message. 

The Church of the Brethren, although persecuted, its 
members chained in galleys, cast into prison, suspended 
by thumbs and toes, and driven into exile, suffering all the 
horrors of a fanatical persecution, themselves never per- 
secuted anybody, and I plead with you this morning to re- 
member that the church is false to its history and false to 
its spirit when at any time it becomes an instrument of op- 
pression or of persecution to any human soul. We can per- 
suade, entreat and petition, but we cannot persecute, and 
sad will be the day when we have so far lost all vital spirit 
of Qiristian tdleration as to make the church an instrument 



M. G. BRUMBAUGH . 23 

of persecution to any human soul. Let us not forget that 
the church was born to suffer persecution but not to in- 
flict it. 

No doubt some of those who entered into the sacred 
compact of 1708 had heard William Penn when in 1672 and 
again in 1678 he preached his way up the Rhine to Switzer- 
land, and into the hearts of the pious and persecuted men 
and women who afterwards flocked in such large numbers 
to the colony of Pennsylvania to enjoy here what they could 
not enjoy there; namely, freedom to worship God without 
the dictation of state or of state religion. 

Sabatier, the great Protestant authority of the college 
of the Sorbonne, has vividly defined the fundamental dis- 
tinction between Romanism and Protestantism by saying 
that the fundamental conception of Romanism is that to 
be right with one's Saviour one must be right with one's 
church, whereas in Protestantism to be right with one's 
church one must be right with his Saviour ; in other words, 
Romanism puts the church between the individual and his 
Saviour while Protestantism put one's Saviour between the 
individual and his church, and we must never forget that 
when the church interferes with the individual's direct com- 
munion and freedom of approach in his own way to his Sa- 
viour the church has become by that act an instrument of 
persecution and not as Mack and his followers understood 
it — a place of companionship for those who have found their 
way to the Saviour and are living in the light as he is in 
the light. It is, therefore, the business of the church to 
make easy the approach of each individual member to the 
Saviour of all mankind, and not to put such restrictions 
and limitations upon the individual as to deny him the right 
to free and full communion with the Divine. 

The little gathering at Schwarzenau, living perhaps in 
huts on the hillside, spent years in discussing the right 
thing to do. In this discussion they were not guided only 



24 CONDITIONS IN GERMANY 

by a careful study of the Bible, but also by the great history 
of the church written by Gottfried Arnold, and by the wise 
counsels of such men as Hochmann and Jeremias Felbinger, 
so that when they were ready to take the initial step for the 
formal organization of the church they were profoundly 
schooled not only in the Book of Truth, but in the history of 
the church and in the doctrines of protest that had sprung 
up under the guidance of Spener, Francke, Arnold, Hoch- 
mann and kindred spirits. 

They formulated a plan which divorced them from all 
other Pietistic friends and determined upon an organized 
church. It was the fear that an organized church would 
lead them back to the very oppressions from which they had 
fled that caused many to hesitate and not a few to refuse 
to enter into the movement, but those who counted the cost 
determined that they should know only the Bible as their 
guide, and turning to this, they evolved doctrines now so 
well known and so well cherished by the Brotherhood. 
They had discarded all tradition, and determined like Paul 
to know but one thing, Jesus Christ and him crucified, 
and to follow but one guide; namely, the Book of Truth, 
which they accept without question as an adequate and suf- 
ficient basis for their religious communion. 

They were not Pietists. They left the Pietistic move- 
ment just as the Pietists before them had withdrawn from 
the state religions that were federated by the Treaty of 
Miinster. Mack and his followers could not endorse the ex- 
cesses of the radical Anabaptists, and were especially hor- 
rified at the sickening excesses and the riotous conduct of 
those in the neighborhood of Miinster. 

They are, therefore, a church founded upon no tradi- 
tion, and caring not at all so much for the apostolic suc- 
cession In the priesthood as they did care for the apostolic 
succession In doctrine. They did not worry about being 
able to trace their priestly lineage back to the twelve, but 



M. G. BRUMBAUGH 25 

they did devoutly resolve and gloriously succeed in estab- 
lishing in our modern civilization the religion which the 
leader of the twelve gave to the world. 

The church is thus a church of protest, and such a 
church is always a minority church. It does not appeal to 
the multitudes who do not think so much as it does appeal 
to the few chosen souls whose consciences are in their acts 
and who think before they do. If ever a church in its indi- 
vidual membership should be absolutely equipped in a 
knowledge of the truth it is a church of protest, such as the 
Church of the Brethren. For that reason the fathers of the 
church were all trained and well educated men — able to give 
answer for the faith that was within them, and the church 
today is weak or strong just in proportion as its individual mem- 
bers are trained and skillful defenders of a faith once de- 
livered to these saintly spirits. 

A church of protest cannot long exist nor can it suc- 
cessfully grow without resting upon thoroughly educational 
training. Hence the need of schools and the broadening 
activities in foreign and home missionary work; in the 
Sunday-school and Bible study, and all other activities that 
build the individual and the church strong on the religious 
side. 

Finally, I beg to remind you that, small in numbers 
though it was, this little church, before it was a score of 
years old, made its impression strong and permanent upon 
the life and thought of Colonial America. In proportion to 
their number I challenge any historian to name a group 
of people who exercised a wider or a better influence upon 
the development of American religious thought. When one 
remembers the 500,000 volumes that came from the press 
of the church before the Revolutionary War one is free to 
challenge the world to name any press that could be thought 
of in comparison with this splendid and far-reaching in- 
fluence. There is no second, and the only one that ap- 



26 CONDITIONS IN GERMANY 

preaches it is the offshoot of itself — the press of that branch 
of the church at Ephrata in Pennsylvania which broke away 
from the mother counsels just twenty years after the church 
was organized. 

Alexander Mack was a great scholar, and his profound 
knowledge of the Bible and the knowledge his Brethren 
shared with him are of such commanding influence that 
they joined with others in producing the memorable Bible 
with far-reaching commentary data known as the Berleberg 
Bible published from 1726 to 1742; and his youngest son, 
Alexander Mack, Bishop of the mother church at German- 
town, wrote more important religious guidance than any 
other leader of American colonial thought. 

We began an educated and powerful church. Let us 
try with all our energies to restore the church to its early 
and its splendid history. We shall thus best serve our day 
— best serve our church — best serve the great head of the 
church, the Son of God. 




T. T. Myers 



Part Two 

The Birth of the Schwarzenau Church and 
its Activities 

By T. T. Myers 

The law of cause and effect is operative in spiritual 
matters as well as in temporal things. The Pietistic move- 
ment of the 17th and 18th centuries was an effect of an 
antecedent cause. This effect, in turn, became a cause of 
other effects. 

The Reformation, though a movement in the right di- 
rection, did not yield the results desired even by the re- 
formers themselves. The doctrine of justification by faith 
alone was directed more to the pacification of the conscience 
than toward the sanctification of life. This opened the door 
to great moral irregularities. Not only did the enemies of 
the Reformation declare that the Evangelicals were no better 
than the Romanists in practical life, but Luther himself 
affirmed that many of those who had professed the full Gos- 
pel were morally worse than those in papal darkness. He 
says "the devil is found among the people to such an ex- 
tent that under the clear light of the Gospel they are more 
covetous, treacherous, prejudicial, unmerciful, undisciplined, 
imprudent, and vexatious, than under the papacy." This 
moral degeneration was not a necessary result of the Ref- 
ormation but it was a natural result. 

The masses set free from Romanism, not knowing what 
was expected of them, were thrown into confusion. They 
were neither moved by the convictions of positive duty nor 
controlled in their lives by the high Christian principle 

27 



28 THE SCHWARZENAU CONGREGATION 

of love. The necessary reconstruction which followed was 
unfortunately one of doctrinal divorced from practical em- 
phasis. Against all these influences there was no adequate 
provision. Many of the clergy, who were the religious di- 
rectors, were ignorant and only in part emancipated from 
the Romish ideals. Religious instruction was neglected. 
Catechization was adapted to fill the memory, but not to 
enrich the understanding or move the heart. The Eucharist 
was supposed to be mechanically effective and preparation 
for it was not earnest. Baptism became almost wholly a 
formal service. Penitence was imposed very much in the 
spirit of Romanism. 

The reaction which followed assumed four phases. 
First, mystical: This was confusing, wild, and without good 
poise. Second, practical: which clearly discerned the evils 
and strove by practical measures to correct them and to 
introduce the Christian ideal. Third, theological : which en- 
deavored to improve the religious life in the formulation of 
doctrine. Fourth, ecclesiastical : led by those who accepted 
the general doctrines of the church and who sought to bring 
about personal piety in the church. These phases of reac- 
tion along with a similar movement in England and Holland 
show that the time was ripe for a change. 

Probably the real originator of the Pietistic movement 
was Arndt who in the early part of the 17th century pub- 
lished in four volumes, True Christianity. This work pro- 
duced a powerful impression. The movement thus started 
was organized and largely developed by Philip Jacob 
Spener. He was highly educated and a strong preacher, 
and filled influential pulpits in large German cities. Wher- 
ever he went he organized classes for Bible study and so- 
cieties for the promotion of piety. His influence spread rap- 
idly through Germany and in many places such classes and' 
societies were formed. In 1675, Spener published a book 
in which he gives six objects of the movement: (1) The pro- 



T. T. MYERS 29 

motion of Bible study in classes. (2) Participation of the laity 
in Christian work. (3) The importance of practical good 
works. (4) Substitution of missions for polemics. (5) Re- 
form of theological study in accord with these principles. (6) 
Requirement of practical piety as well as learning for the 
clergy. Among the ablest and most influential successors of 
Spener we may name August Herman Francke, Gottfried 
Arnold, Jeremiah Felbinger, and Ernst Christoph Hochmann. 
These carried on to successful issues the work so well begun. 

Among the direct beneficial results of the Pietistic 
movement it is fair to name: (1) The founding of the Uni- 
versity of Halle in 1694, and the founding of the Orphanage 
by Francke. (2) The reorganizing of modern missions. 
Liitken, who was educated at Halle, was appointed court 
preacher of Denmark. He prevailed on the king to send a 
preacher to the heathen in India. Accordingly, Ziegen- 
balg was sent in 1706 at the king's expense. (3) The 
founding of the Brethren (German Baptist) church at 
Schwarzenau in 1708. 

At this time the greatest extremes of beliefs and prac- 
tices were to be found on the continent. From the strictest 
and most formal ecclesiasticism to the loosest and wildest 
mysticism, the whole gamut of doctrine ran its way. There 
was general confusion and bewilderment. Those who held 
certain kinds of religious views became intolerant toward 
those who differed from them. The state church in various 
parts of Germany was now Catholic, now Protestant. When 
the Catholics were in power they persecuted the Prot- 
estants. When the Protestants were in power they perse- 
cuted the Catholics. As the Protestants divided up into 
sects they persecuted each other. Cruel persecution for re- 
ligious belief and practice was a daily occurrence. The 
government was changing, unstable, and often insincere. 
It was neither able nor inclined to give protection. It may 
be said in brief, that for a hundred years, from the beginning 



30 THE SCHWARZENAU CONGREGATION 

of the Thirty Years' War (1618), the Rhine countries were 
scenes of almost constant carnage. Wherever a tolerant 
ruler could be found there the persecuted would flee for 
refuge. Such a ruler was found in the friendly count who 
ruled over Wittgenstein in Hesse-Cassel at the close of the 
17th and the opening of the 18th centuries. Into that coun- 
try, though naturally poor and uninviting, many who were 
honest and earnest in religion fled for protection. Notably 
among those who found their way there were Ernst Chris- 
toph Hochmann and Alexander Mack. 

Both Hochmann and Mack were Pietists. Hochmann 
probably remained one, Mack did not. They were close 
friends. They had much in common. They studied, prayed, 
worshiped, preached and traveled together. There came a 
time when Mack came to the conviciton that it is necessary 
to practice the teachings of Christ and the Apostles, and 
consequently it is necessary to form an organization. He 
could not see how Matthew 18: 15-17 can be carried out 
without the existence of an organized body — the church. 
Hochmann could not agree with Mack. Here then, pain- 
ful indeed to both, they had to part company. It is alto- 
gether probable that they never came fully together again. 

Associated with Mack at Schwarzenau in the province 
of Wittgenstein was an earnest little body of seekers after 
truth. They mutually agreed to lay aside all human creeds, 
confessions of faith and catechisms, and to give themselves 
individually by prayer and the help of the Holy Spirit to 
the search of Truth in God's Book, and having found it, 
to follow it wherever it might lead them. As a result of 
this devotional study, they were led to adopt the New Tes- 
tament as their rule of faith and practice and to declare in 
favor of a literal observance of all commandments of our 
dear Saviour. Surely, they came to a wise conclusion. They 
found a safe rock on which to build. 

Having settled upon their canon of faith and practice, 



T, T. MYERS 31 

they became convinced that baptism was essential to the 
Christian Hfe, and that a threefold immersion into the Name 
of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost alone 
satisfied the words of our Lord's commission. So one day 
(we know neither the month nor the day of the month, but 
only the year, 1708) a little company, eight souls, walked 
forth from their homes and place of worship in or near 
Schwarzenau to the beautiful little river Eder which flows 
through a beautiful valley of green. On the bank of the 
river they read a passage of Scripture and sang and prayed. 
Then one of the eight, which one we do not know, led Alex- 
ander Mack into the water and baptized him into the Name 
of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Mack 
then baptized the other seven. This was probably the first 
instance of trine immersion in all that country. These 
eight then formed themselves into a new congregation with 
Alexander Mack as its first minister. 

The names of the first members were Alexander and 
Margaretha Mack formerly from Schreisheim, George Gre- 
bi and Luke Vetter formerly from Hesse-Cassel, Andrew 
Bony formerly from Basle, Switzerland, John and Joanna 
Kipping formerly from Bareit in Wurtemburg, and Joanna 
Noetinger. These were associated in Christ for worship, 
work and discipline. As an infant congregation they grew 
in love, knowledge and experience. Their peace, however, 
was Soon disturbed. Persecution was directed against 
them. Some had to go elsewhere for safety. This, along 
with zeal for the cause, resulted in the Gospel being planted 
and churches being formed in other places. The year 1715 
found a church of considerable size gathered at Marienborn. 
Persecution of the church at this place gave rise to the 
founding of the church at Crefeld. Another church was 
founded at Epstein, Besides it seems clear that a number of 
members found residence in other parts of Germany and 
Switzerland and probably also in other places on the con- 
tinent. 



32 THE SCHWARZENAU CONGREGATION 

The hardships in the fatherland, occasioned by the se- 
vere persecutions, made these earnest followers of our Lord 
anxious to find a place where they might with freedom and 
in peace worship God according to his Word. They learned 
of the large liberty and gracious spirit that characterized 
the new lands of William Penn in America. In 1719, Peter 
Becker with about twenty others set sail for the new world. 
They landed in Philadelphia and settled at Germantown. 
The Schwarzenau congregation was so severely persecuted 
that in 1720, with Alexander Mack as leader, it almost 
wholly fled to Westervain in West Friesland. From here 
these also sailed in 1729, fifty-nine families or one hundred 
and twenty-six souls, and landed in Philadelphia on Sep- 
tember 15 of the same year. They settled at Germantown 
with the Brethren who had preceded them and whom they 
dearly loved. These successive emigrations across the sea 
left the churches in Europe very weak. Crefeld contin- 
ued for some years as the place where the Brethren, who 
were left, collected. It was the Mecca for the persecuted. 
It was not long, however, until all the Brethren were re- 
moved from European to American soil. Persecution drove 
the faith as held by the Brethren entirely from Germany, 
Holland and Switzerland. These countries were the losers 
while America, with its large welcome, was the gainer. 

Among the most prominent men in the church in Eu- 
rope were Alexander Mack, the elder at Schwarzenau and 
in West Friesland; John Nass, elder in charge at Marien- 
born; Christian Libe and Alexander DuBoy, elders in 
charge at Epstein. These congregations withdrew to Cre- 
feld where John Nass and Christian Libe were elders. 
Peter Becker, who organized the first emigration to Amer- 
ica in 1719, also was a minister in the church at Crefeld. 
Others who became ministers in the early years of the 
church in Europe were John Henry Kalkleser, John Henry 



T. T. MYERS 33 

Traut, Heinrich Holzapple, and Stephen Koch. Having 
given briefly the founding and history of the church in 
Europe, let us see more definitely v^hat kind of a church it 
was that was founded. 

1. It was a praying church. Living in the midst of 
religious error and being all the while exposed to hard 
criticism and persecution, at the same time desiring, yea, 
being determined by divine help to live pleasing to God, 
they prayed earnestly for his guiding and protecting 
care. In prayer they studied, in prayer they worshipped 
and worked. They believed and claimed the promise, 
" where two or three are gathered together in my name, 
there am I in the midst of them." Also, " and all things 
whatever ye ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive." 
When the people of God are in dark days and in hard trials 
then are they most earnest and persistent in prayer. 
The church needs always to pray for the guidance and com- 
fort of the Holy Spirit. We always have occasion to be 
thankful for divine blessings and to ask for divine help. 

2. It was a spirit-filled church. The first disciples 
of our Lord were commanded to tarry at Jerusalem 
for the promise of the Father — the Holy Spirit. They 
tarried in prayer and in holy meditation and in God's good 
time received the blessing. They were wondrously filled 
with the Spirit. The light of the truth came upon them 
and Peter was made strong and courageous to preach that 
masterful sermon that bore such a large fruitage of souls. 
In some such way these earnest souls at Schwarzenau 
waited in prayer and study for the spirit to come to them in 
power and direct them. Such a visitation, indeed, came to 
them. They got the light of truth and were made strong 
to carry out their holy resolutions. Neither Christians nor 
churches can be strong without the indwelling and the in- 
filling of the Holy Spirit. Without him there can be no 
happy Christian life and no efficient Christian work. 



54 THE SCHWARZENAU CONGREGATION 

3. It was a Bible-studying church. The theological 
discussions of the day were confusing and bUnding. 
Many knew what was said of the Bible. Few knew what 
the Bible said. Those earnest souls at Schwarzenau 
were tired of the weighty discussions on vague and non- 
essential questions. They wanted the essential things. 
They laid aside dogmas and creeds and catechisms and 
discussions and with open Bibles they sought with open 
hearts and with unprejudiced minds " what says the Scrip- 
ture." Surely to such earnest seekers the way of truth is 
made clear. Especially so, since they were exceedingly 
willing to walk in the way as it was made manifest. We 
may be sure that they needed no fairs and festivals and sen- 
sational preaching to attract them and hold them together 
and keep them interested. Their attraction was the Word. 
They were most interested in divine things. Such things 
should always be the superior attraction of the church. 
A church devoted to Bible study is usually a church con- 
sistent in the Christian life and diligent in Christian work. 

4. It was a Gospel-obeying church. They committed 
themselves in the beginning to the principle of obey- 
ing literally the commandments of the New Testament and 
to observe all its teachings. In common with the Pietists 
they held that there must be " no exercise of force in 
religion." Consequently, though they were persecuted by 
many of those who differed from them, they did not in turn 
persecute. They further deduced from this principle that to 
compel anyone to join the church is to exercise force. Chil- 
dren who are baptized in infancy are compelled to join the 
church. This is inconsistent. So the church in the outset 
was opposed to infant baptism — all the more so because 
there is no command in the New Testament to support it. 
To compel an individual by law to take an oath is contrary 
to the teaching of Scripture. This is using force in relig- 
ion. So the church was opposed to the oath — all the more 



T. T. MYERS 35 

so because Jesus plainly says to his people, *' swear not at 
all." To go to law is to use force. So it is wrong 
for brother to go to law with brother — all the more 
so because of the teaching of Paul, " It it indeed a 
defect in you, that ye have law-suits one with another." 
To compel anyone to go to war is using force. The church 
in the very beginning was opposed to war. All the more 
so because they recognized themselves as followers of the 
Prince of Peace and of him who said, " my kingdom is not 
of this world; if my kingdom were of this world, then 
would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered to 
the Jews; but now is my kingdom not from hence." The 
State cannot have authority over one's Christian con- 
science. To undertake to exercise such authority is to use 
force in religion. Consequently, the church opposed the 
union of church and state. She had to raise her voice 
against a state church and this at a time when the an- 
nouncement of such a view was exceedingly unpopular and 
likely to invite trouble. 

The Schwarzenau Brethren discovered by a careful 
study of the Scriptures that faith and repentance are in- 
separably connected with baptism, and that baptism is by 
immersion into the name of the Father, and into the name 
of the Son, and into the name of the Holy Ghost. They 
were all the more satisfied with their conviction on baptism, 
as to its purpose and mode, when they found that the his- 
tory of the early church was in agreement with their be- 
lief and practice. The New Testament further taught them 
that they should observe the example and teaching of 
Christ as recorded in John 13. It was clear to them that 
Jesus instituted the service of feet-washing in the assembled 
church at the same time and in connection with the supper 
and the communion of the bread and wine. They failed 
to see why one should be continued in observance and 
either one of the others or both eliminated from the practice of 



36 THE SCHWARZENAU CONGREGATION 

the church. In consistency with the doctrinal canon with which 
they started they were compelled to accept and practice all 
the ordinances of God's house as they found them in Scrip- 
ture. They could well reason out that if the blessed prom- 
ises of John 14 should be theirs for comfort and encour- 
agement the doctrines and ordinances of John 13 should be 
theirs also for belief and practice. Consequently, the lit- 
tle Schwarzenau church in their devotion to the Master 
were willing and courageous to be found in the evening of 
the day in the assembly of the church, washing one an- 
other's feet and thus observing an ordinance long, long neg- 
lected if ever practiced in that section of the world. 

They also found that Christ ate a supper with his disciples 
after he had washed their feet. They were glad in following 
the example of the Master after they had obeyed him in love, 
to sit down as brethren and sisters in the Lord to eat the Lord's 
supper together. Their circumstances and experiences had 
made them feel like one family. And now thus to eat together 
the supper of the Lord made them strong in hope and joyful 
in spirit. At the close of the supper they partook of the bread 
and wine in commemoration of the broken body and shed 
blood of the Lord. Before leaving the worshipful service and 
great blessing they one time more in pledge of love and faith 
saluted one another with a holy kiss and so fulfilled the teach- 
ing of the Apostle when he says, " Greet ye one another with 
a holy kiss." They believed and practiced in harmony with 
James 5 : 13-18. In worship they appeared as instructed by 
Paul in the eleventh chapter of First Corinthians. In short, 
they pledged themselves to one another and to God, by his 
help, that they would be what he wants them to be, that they 
would do what he wants them to do, and that they would go 
where he wants them to go. This, brethren, has been our 
wish and effort if we have been true, as their successors, to 
the trust they left us. 

They were a plain people. The spirit in which they were 



T. T. MYERS 37 

born and the purpose for which they came into being de- 
manded an earnest, plain, simple life. The clothing of the soul 
in the beautiful vestments of righteousness was of untold more 
value and concern to them than the clothing of the body. 
Even an inclination on their part to go with the changing 
fashions of the world would have been grossly inconsistent 
with the principle on which they started out and would have 
been most disastrous in its effects on their mission and work. 
It is just as impossible today to live after the dictates of 
worldly pride and fashion and at the same time live a life con- 
secrated to God. 

5. The Schwarzenau church was an intelligent body of 
Christians. They were born neither in blindness nor in igno- 
rance. Their zeal had the balance of knowledge. They wer«e 
well informed not only in Scripture but also in theology and 
history. Their desire for learning Was increased by their de- 
sire to be in the right way for God. Amidst the errors and 
religious speculations of the day they had to have an intelli- 
gent understanding of the erroneous doctrines that were 
broadcast as well as ability to formulate correct doctrines. 
Alexander Mack gives evidence of more than ordinary ability 
in his writings. He was a good preacher and a great organ- 
izer. John Naas was a man of marked ability. This might be 
said also of others. They were asked some very difficult and 
perplexing questions. Look at a question or two, from Mack's 
book, and see how wisely and ably they were answered. 

Question. — Do you not, by elevating baptism as a command to 
which obedience is indispensably essential, establish a new species 
of popery in which men expect salvation through works? 

Answer. — We have already plainly declared that we do not 
expect to merit salvation by works, but alone through faith in 
Christ, which faith must have works of obedience in order that 
it may be a saving faith. And when there is no such faith which 
worketh obedience (not because of the edict of the pope, but 
because of the command of Christ, the crucified) there is no salva- 
tion to be hoped for from any act that is performed without faith. 



38 THE SCHWARZENAU CONGREGATION 

Question. — Are all those whom you have baptized actually 
born again? 

Answer. — That, indeed, would be a grand baptism if all those 
whom we baptize in water would become new creatures. Such 
results, however, did not obtain from the labors of Christ or his 
apostles, that all whom they baptized walked in the truth. But 
when there is true faith and the Word be accepted in faith a 
genuine regeneration will follow with the washing of water by the 
Word, as expressed in Eph. 5: 26. 

These and other answers of theirs sound as if they came 
from scholastics of an earlier period seasoned with God's love. 
6. They were a persecuted church. Those earnest souls 
knew what it was to suffer for their religion. Some of them, 
notably Mack, had been blessed with considerable wealth. 
Persecution made them all comparatively poor. They had to 
flee hither and thither and in their flight they necessarily had 
to leave and sacrifice much of their property. Naas, because 
he refused to enlist in the army, was cruelly tortured. His 
tormentors hung him up with a heavy cord by his left thumb 
and right big toe. In this manner they intended to leave him 
suspended until he should yield. Not yielding they cut him 
dow'n and dragged him into the presence of the king. His 
strong athletic form made him desirable for military service. 
The king looked at him and said : " Tell me why you refused 
to enlist." " Because," he answered, " I have long ago en- 
listed in the noblest and best army ; I cannot become a traitor 
to my king." "And who is your captain ? " asked the king. 
" My captain," answered he, " is the great Prince Immanuel, 
our Lord Jesus Christ. I have espoused his cause and cannot 
and will not forsake him." " Neither will I then ask you to do 
so," answered the noble ruler, handing him a gold coin for 
his fidelity. The king then released him. Christian Libe, 
because he would not renounce his faith, was sent to the 
galleys where he had to work the galling oars by the side of 
criminals for two years. Brethren, those were trying times. 
We should be thankful that we need not live in them. And let 



T. T. MYERS 39 

us also be thankful that those whose lot it was to live in them 
were faithful to the last to the great King. 

7. The Schwarzenau church was a missionary church. Its 
members were dedicated, not to worldly pursuits, but to the 
cause of God. When they moved, they moved not to make 
money, but to extend the kingdom. By their holy zeal the 
cause spread to Marienborn, Crefeld, Epstein, into Switzer- 
land, into Holland, and across the waters into the new world. 
We are safe to say that the original eight in twenty years, 
from 1708 to 1728, grew to one thousand. Had this same ratio 
of increase continued to the present we would today number 
many, many times more than we do. Our splendid missionary 
spirit at this time is the legitimate revival of the noble spirit 
which the church had in its early years. Removed as we are 
two hundred years from the earnest, brave, little Schwarzenau 
church, she still has relations with us. She is ready to instruct 
and inspire us. While I would not ask that we pattern after 
her in everything, for no organization of human beings is 
perfect, we do well to take her example in very many 
things. We do well if we duplicate her love, her faith, her 
devotion to the holy, Scriptures, and her loyalty to Christ. 

August 16, 1895, is a day of sweet memory to me. On that 
day our dear Bro. H. B. Brumbaugh and I strolled through 
the little village of Schwarzenau and up and down the beauti- 
ful little Eder. It seemed to us we found the place where the 
noble eight were baptized. Yielding to the inspiration of the 
moment, we took off our shoes and waded into the water. I 
said to myself: "Here in 1708 the light of God shone afresh 
upon the children of men." It has been shining, blessedly 
shining, on us ever since. May it shine on and on and on 
until it shall fill the world! 



Chapter Two 
The Church in Colonial America 




G. TV. Falkenstein 



Part One 

The Mother Church at Germantown and 

Her Children. The Settlement 

of Germantown 

By G. N. Falkenstein 

When the English Quakers settled Philadelphia in 1682, 
William Penn, the Proprietor of the Province of Pennsylvania, 
had already personally invited the Mennonites in the valley 
of the Rhine in Germany, and in Holland, to settle in the Land 
of Promise, that was to be a haven of rest for the oppressed 
and persecuted. Being of kindred spirit, they were likewise 
longing for liberty of conscience, and religious freedom, and 
were ready to accept the promise of better things in a new 
world. The first settlers came the following year, and form- 
ing a distinct community six miles to the northwestward, it 
was called German Town, to distinguish from the English set- 
tlement down on the Delaware. 

On the 10th of March, 1682, William Penn conveyed to 
Jacob Telner, Jan Streypers, and Dirck Sipman, each five 
thousand acres of land.* 

On the 11th of June, 1683, Penn conveyed to Govert 
Remke, Lenart Arets, Jacob Isaacs Van Bebber, all of Cre- 
feld, one thousand acres each, and they, together with Telner, 
Streypers, Sipman, constituted the original Crefeld purchasers. 

The first company of settlers, consisting of thirteen men 
with their families, thirty-three persons in all, and all related, 
were also from Crefeld, and vicinity. After a pleasant voyage, 

*I am indebted to Hon. S. W.. Pennypacker, History of German- 
town, for names of purchasers and dates of purchase. 

43 



44 THE MOTHER CHURCH 

these pioneers reached Philadelphia on the 6th of October, 
1683. 

GERMANTOWN OPENS THE EPOCH OF GERMAN IMMIGRATION. 

Thus begins the settlement of Germantown, small and 
poor, and some, we are told, making a pun on the word Ger- 
mantown, called it Arman town ; but " the settlement of 
Germantown, in 1683, was the initial step in the great move- 
ment of people from the regions bordering on the historic 
and beautiful Rhine, extending from its source in the moun- 
tains of Switzerland to its mouth in the lowlands of Holland, 
which has done so much to give Pennsylvania her rapid 
growth as a colony, her almost unexampled prosperity, and 
her foremost rank in the development of the institutions of 
the country." It is an exceedingly interesting fact in relation 
to our own history, as we shall see a little later, that the first 
impulse, followed by the first wave of emigration, came from 
Crefeld. Francis Daniel Pastorius representing both the Cre- 
feld purchasers and the Frankfort Land Company preceded 
these settlers by several weeks, and became the most prominent 
character in the early settlement of Germantown. 

THE CONDITIONS IN THE GERMAN FATHERLAND. 

Let US take a brief view of the German Fatherland, and 
its religious conditions, and we shall better understand the 
reason for the German settlement in the new world and the 
later wholesale transplanting of German virtue into this Ameri- 
can soil of religious freedom.* " Let us go back to the place 
of so many scenes of religious devotion and conflict. For, as 
a religious country, Germany stands unique, and in the 
summing up of its religious interests and activities, is without 
parallel in the annals of history — the length of time of its 
religious history, its extreme and diversified character of doc- 
trine, its orthodoxy and heterodoxy, its mysticism, rationalism 

•German Baptist Brethren, page 12. 



G. N. FALKENSTEIN 45 

and materialism, its bitterness of ecclesiastical antagonism, at 
times, its blind following of dogma, and, at other times, its 
activity in a sincere and pious and intelligent devotion to 
Christianity. These things will always mark Germany as a 
vast and most fruitful field for the student of church history. 
In this land, the home of the Reformation, and in the midst 
of this history and these surroundings, was born the Brethren 
Church." 

The bitterness of persecution and the horrors of martyr- 
dom in the days of the Anabaptists was only equaled by the 
mdescribable spectacle of Roman persecution in the days of 
Nero. The valley of the Rhine resounded with the moans 
of the persecuted and the tortured for a century and a half. 
What strange admixture of spiritual and military history ! 

Oh, beautiful country of the Rhine, — but what strange 
history has drenched thy fairness in human blood. From the 
days of chivalry and knighthood, and defensive castle walls, 
down through the centuries of conflict, martial history has 
marked thy beautiful regions as an incomparable field of 
carnage. Bowman and spearman, and armored knight, and 
vast marching hosts, with light and heavy dragoons, and 
thundering field batteries, have all passed in successive review 
o'er thy fair soil, to victory and defeat. Tribes and nations 
and empires have risen and fallen by thy decisive battles. But 
the thundering boom of cannon, that drowned the groans of 
the dying, and the shouts of victory over fallen foe, have long 
since died into resounding echoes of thy everlasting hills. 
Peaceful Rhine, — and may the glory of thy peace far exceed 
the fading glory of thy military conquests ! 

But the land of our fathers is more famous for its warring 
spiritual history, — its conflicts were more fierce, its antagoniz- 
ing foes more bitter, its battles more decisive, its victories 
more signal, and its results more permanent and glorious. 
Upon this blood-drenched soil of conflict, the Brethren ac- 



46 THE MOTHER CHURCH 

cepted the terms of unconditional surrender, the surrender of 
all earthly good, of friends, of home, and of native land, and 
banishment and exile beyond the seas. 

But as the blood of martyrs has ever been the seed of the 
church, so they gathered the fruits of their own severe disci- 
pline and bitter experience, and the blessings of those who 
had marked out their path in blood, and in honorable retreat, 
they sadly marched away. They snatched the colors of the 
Prince of Peace and became standard-bearers of the Cross. 
With many heartaches for the homeland, they turned their 
faces to the West, and resolutely determined to plant the prin- 
ciples of the gospel of righteousness in the soil of freedom. 

THE CREFELD REFUGEES DESTINED TO BECOME THE MOTHER 

CHURCH. 

Crefeld was destined to furnish the first (Company of 
Brethren for emigration and settlement in the new world, just 
as it had furnished the first emigrants for the first settlement 
of Germantown. It is important at this point that we know 
something of the character of these refugees that resorted to 
Crefeld, and soon are to become the mother church, at 
Germantown. No one is better able to explain the composi- 
tion and character of the Crefeld Society than Alexander 
Mack himself, and I quote his own language, following the 
baptismal scene. This is recorded to have occurred in the 
before-mentioned year, without reference to month or day. 

After this evidence of their love to God, by obeying his com- 
mand, they were powerfully strengthened and encouraged to bear 
testimony for the truth in their public meetings, to which the Lord 
added his blessing, and believers were more and more obedient, so 
that in the short space of seven years their society became numer- 
ous, not only at Schwarzenau, but also at divers places in the 
Palatinate. A society was likewise formed at Marienborn, to 
which the awakened from the Palatinate attached themselves, for 
in endeavoring to form a society for themselves, they were perse- 
cuted and banished. And even at Marienborn their external 
privileges were soon blasted, for as the light diffused itself the 



G. N. FALKENSTEIN 47 

truth spread, and their numbers increased; it excited alarm and 
envy; persecution arose; they were driven out as exiles, and under 
direction of Providence found an asylum at Crefeld, under the 
jurisdiction of the King of Prussia. 

Within this short space of time, it pleased God to awaken 
many laborers among them, and send them into his vineyard, whose 
names and places of abode are as follows: John H. Kalkloser from 
Frankenthal; Christian Libe and Abraham Dubois from Epstein; 
John Naas and others from the North; Peter Becker from Dils- 
he;m; John H. Traut and his brothers; Henry Holtzappel and 
Stephen Koch; George B. Gantz from Umstadt, and Michael 
Eckerlin from Strassburg; the greater number of whom resorted 
to Crefeld; some few, however, attached themselves to the so- 
ciety at Schwarzenau. 

Thus was brought together at Crefeld a body of Brethren 
from different places. Exiled and banished from their own 
homes, they found a temporary refuge at Crefeld, which now 
became a general asylum for the oppressed and persecuted. 
It became the gateway, the open door of Providence to the 
way of escape, a kind of Red Sea deliverance. How little 
did they reaHze that the Lord was leading the way and mar- 
shalling them for mighty conquests and glorious victories 
beyond the sea. They had here every opportunity to learn 
full particulars of the now prosperous settlement of the Ger- 
mans in the Quaker Province. It is now thirty-six years since 
the Crefeld settlers first laid the foundations of the first perma- 
nent German town on the American continent. They would, 
therefore, naturally turn toward Germantown, as their only 
way of hope, and to Germantown they came, in 1719, with 
Peter Becker as their leader. 

THE MEMORABLE CHRISTMAS DAY IN THE HISTORY OF THE 
CHURCH. 

Memorable, because from the organized beginnings of 
that day, the Church of the Brethren has grown to a present 
membership of one hundred thousand, and, I suppose, several 
hundred thousand others, who preceded us and are now sleep- 
ing with the Fathers. Memorable, because no other Christmas 



48 THE MOTHER CHURCH 

Day, in these two hundred years, has been followed by such 
tremendous results. I have dwelt at some length upon the 
experience of these Brethren before coming to America, in 
order that we may better understand the w^onderful signifi- 
cance of the work at Germantown. On that day, December 25, 
1723, three events transpired that made the first day of the 
mother church so memorable. In the forenoon the church was 
fully organized by choosing Peter Becker as their elder; in 
the afternoon, six applicants were baptized in the historic 
Wissahickon, the *' first fruits " of the church in America ; and, 
in the evening, at the home of Brother John Gommere, on the 
shores of the Wissahickon, near the place of baptism, the 
first love feast and communion service was held. The newly 
baptized were: IMartin Umer and his wife, Henry Landis 
and his wife, Frederick Lang and Jane Mayle, and they had 
come thirty-five miles to receive baptism at the hands of the 
Brethren. The seventeen persons that constituted the organiza- 
tion were as follows: Peter Becker, Johann Heinrich Traut, 
Jeremias Traut, Balser Traut, Heinrich Holzappel, Johannes 
Gumre, Stephan Koch, Jacob Koch, Johannes Hildebrand, 
Daniel Ritter, George Balser Gansz, Johannes Preisz, 
Johannes Kamfer, INIagdalena Traut, Anna Gumre, Maria 
Hildebrand, and Johanna Gansz. These seventeen, together 
w4th the six just baptized, twenty-three in all, constituted the 
communicants at the love feast, in the evening. The place of 
baptism is known as the Baptismal Pool to this day, and, in 
addition to this, we have the reasonable assurance of the 
identification of the home of John Gommere. If so, then I 
stood within the ruined walls, where the mother church, on 
that memorable day, sat around the table of the Lord. 

THE CHARACTER OF THE EARLY MEMBERSHIP OF THE MOTHER 

CHURCH. 

When the mother church was formally organized, it must 
be remembered that the members were not raw recruits, but 



G. N. FALKENSTEIN 49 

seasoned veterans. They were battle-scarred spiritual heroes, 
disciplined in the hardest battles that Christian men are ever 
called upon to fight. The very highest type of Christian 
character alone survived the severest test of persecution 
through which they passed. The weak and faint-hearted had 
all fallen by the wayside. This is why the little German church 
on the slope of wooded hills on the old Indian trail was ready 
to do such splendid things, without parallel in the province, 
and thus contributed so large a part of the glorious history of 
two hundred years. Of the seventeen members constituting 
the organization on December 25, 1723, four were married 
women, whose husbands were among the thirteen brethren. 
Of these thirteen, at least seven were ministers. Of the twenty 
families who had come to America four years before, only 
about 112 had settled in the immediate vicinity of German- 
town. Others settled a little more remote, and still others 
went into the frontier forests, and in years after, some of these 
scattered ones were lost to the church. Organized effort 
proved to be a great help to their consecrated purposes, and 
success immediately .crowned their labors and greatly enlarged 
their field of opportunities. But they rose equal to the occa- 
sion to serve their day and generation, and there is, perhaps, 
no higher tribute that can be paid to their Christian devotion 
to the cause they loved, and for which they sacrificed so much, 
than to say, some of these early families have given four, five, 
and six generations of noble workers for the Lord, and their 
descendants are with us until this day. 

THE MOTHER CHURCH, A MISSIONARY, A WORKING CHURCH. 

It is manifestly impossible to crowd into the space of a 
few lines the activities of a church for scores of years, but it 
may readily be seen from the character of the membership 
produced by years of training in the hardest kind of discipline, 
as noted in the preceding pages, the mother church was an 
active, a working church. She had a unique position with 
special opportunities, and she became an extraordinary church. 



50 THE MOTHER CHURCH 

She had a good force of workers, and with certain scattered 
Brethren among their own countrymen, she had an unhmited 
field among the Germans. She at once became a missionary 
church. Some services had been held from time to time, from 
the beginning, in the vicinity of Germantown, and some of 
the scattered members had also been visited, but now the work 
received a great impetus by its organized effort. Larger mis- 
sionary plans were formed, and organized effort made to 
carry them out. 

It was deemed advisable that all the scattered settlements 
of Brethren should be visited at once and brought under or- 
ganized spiritual influences. For this purpose a missionary party- 
was organized, with Peter Becker as the leader. It was the first 
of a series, but this — the most remarkable missionary tour to the 
frontier in all Pennsylvania colonial history — is absolutely with- 
out parallel. Leaving industry and loved ones behind, these pio- 
neer preachers of the Gospel, with true German devotion to the 
cause they loved, marched forth, seven horsemen and seven foot- 
men. It was a worthy representation of the importance of the 
cause they sought to establish, as well as a worthy representation 
of the work accomplished in their continued devotion. What a 
mission was theirs, pushing out to the frontier lines to battle with 
callous indifference and skepticism or mysticism and materialism 
among their fellow countrymen. And so October 23, 1724, was a 
memorable day for the Germantown settlement, and what an im- 
pressive scene it must have been to behold the gathering of the 
company of cavalry and infantry, and then behold the company 
as it slowly moved out of the settlement, northward, over the old 
Indian trail. The scattered settlers have gathered in little groups, 
here and there, to discuss the journey and mission of their neigh- 
bors vanished over the slopes of the distant hills.* 

This tour extended to the Conestoga country, now Lan- 
caster County, and was eminently successful. The Coventry 
church was organized, and the foundations laid for two others. 
Let this one instance suffice to prove the missionary activity. 
No other Brethren, and no other church, from that day until 
now, has reached such a high water-mark in frontier mission- 

♦History of the German Baptist Brethren, by the writer, pages 
43 and 44. 



G. N. FALKENSTEIN 51 

ary work. " The Widows' Home " represented the charity of 
the church, and her educational interests are manifest by the 
fact that there was a select school conducted in the church 
property, long before the introduction of the free-school sys- 
tem. Here also, for several generations, were published the 
Bibles and hymn-books. In short, for more than a hundred 
years, the mother church was the center of great activity and 
influence. 

A FEW OF THE EARLY CHURCHES, — THE CHILDREN OF 
GERMANTOWN. 

It is not possible to trace the history of the children, for 
all are children, or grandchildren, etc., of Germantown, but a 
view of the activities of the mother church is not complete 
unless we take brief account in this connection, of a few of the 
early churches which she established. The children were not 
born without travail, and they were not nursed and raised to 
the point when they could take care of themselves, without 
great anxiety and labor and sacrifice on the part of the mother. 
The work on the frontier was attended with a great deal of 
labor, from the fact that these outpost churches were far away 
from Germantown, and even if organized, were largely sup- 
plied from there, and almost the only mode of travel in those 
early days was on horseback, or on foot. Even as late as 1780, 
the ordination of elders, and other important church work, 
was done from Germantown. This work covered a period of 
at least half a century, and extended to the westward as far 
as what is now Dauphin County, a distance of almost one 
hundred miles. But aside from all this, the work suffered 
interruption and distracting difficulties. After Beissel with- 
drew, he continued to preach his false doctrines among the 
Brethren, and, for a time, succeeded in confusing even some 
of the members at Germantown. Great strength was added 
to the cause in the new world, when, in 1729, Alexander Mack 
himself with the entire remainder of the church in Europe, 



62 THE MOTHER CHURCH 

consisting of about thirty families in all, came to Germantown. 
This body of reenforcements, the entire Schwarzenau congre- 
gation, almost doubled the working force, and in a few years 
several additional congregations were organized. But Elder 
Mack was not long permitted to enjoy the increasing fruitage 
of successful work. At the early age of fifty-six, and only 
six years after he came to this country, in the very prime of his 
years of usefulness, he died in 1735. And now came the hard- 
est test to the Brethren cause that had yet come. Seeing they 
had lost their beloved leader, many became discouraged. 
Beissel saw the opportunity to accomplish his evil ends, and 
in order to satisfy his ambition for leadership, he redoubled 
his efforts to establish his false doctrines among the Brethren. 
As he made inroads, he became more aggressive, and more 
offensive to those who dared to resist his attacks, and he even 
sent an emissary to Germantown, to the Brethren's own meet- 
ing, to denounce there publicly Elder Peter Becker. The 
climax to all this came in the exodus of 1739, when a number 
from Germantown, both married and single, left their homes 
and the mother church, and joined Beissel's monastic com- 
munity, at Ephrata. After some time, a number of these 
returned to Germantown, and the infant congregations, but it 
required years to recover from this sad experience, and some 
there were who went down to their graves with the sorrow 
of their broken homes. But in the midst of all these difficulties 
and discouragements, and this bitter experience, churches 
were organized as follows: Coventry, November 7, 1724; 
Conestoga, partly, November 12, 1724, and more fully, 1735 ; 
Oley, 1732; Great Swamp, Pennsylvania, and Amwell, New 
Jersey, 1733; and others later; and from the mother church, at 
Germantown, and her children, has the cause of Primitive 
Christianity spread to the southward, and westward to the 
Pacific, rebounding eastward, crossing the Atlantic to Europe, 
and then onward to the Heathen East, the homeland of the 
human family. 



G. N. FALKENSTEIN 53 

THE CHARACTER OF THE LEADERS IN THE MOTHER CHURCH, AT 

GERMANTOWN. 

It has been said that the history of a nation is a history 
of its great men. That is probably true also of the church. 
We know the church in the reformation largely, only as we 
know the lives of the great reformers. Perhaps we have been 
slow to recognize great leaders among us. But men must be 
judged according to the results of their work. Men are great 
leaders in proportion as they embody in their own lives the 
genius and spirit and character of a great cause. The lives of 
the leaders of the Brethren Church have never been fully 
written. Perhaps they could not be until now, and perhaps 
they cannot yet be. It may be that we are losing some of 
their biographical facts, but the development of their work for 
two hundred years will enable us to read and understand their 
lives better than a mere biographical sketch. Reference to 
the leaders in the foregoing historical sketch was merely inci- 
dental. I cannot even here stop for biographic details, or 
specific individual and personal descriptions, but must be con- 
tent with this somewhat general presentation, being assured 
of this fact that the names of Mack, and Becker, and Sower 
will ever be inseparably connected with the glorious history of 
Germantown. The great work of Alexander Mack, Sr., was 
accomplished in Europe, but six years in America was long 
enough to impress his character on the life of the mother 
church. We shall grow in appreciation of Peter Becker, the 
first elder in America, as we grow in knowledge of the results 
of his faithful devotion to the church in the hour of great 
crisis. Elder Christopher Sower, the heroic sufferer for peace 
and for conscience' sake, will ever remain as an enduring 
monument to the cruel inhumanity of war and the astonishing 
injustice of our government in the confiscation of his property. 

Ambition for mere self-exaltation is base, ignoble, incon- 
sistent with great leadership ; but self-abnegation is an essential 
element in the true character of an exalted soul. In the lives 



54 THE MOTHER CHURCH 

of these great and good men, there was a striking self- 
forgetfulness which would always exalt the cause of Christ 
and magnify his interests. The fullest embodiment of this 
spirit was in Alexander Mack, Sr., himself, and perhaps it 
found its highest expression in the closing incident of his life, 
when, as he was about to close his earthly career, he looked 
forward to the time when his work should fall into other hands. 
He called his sons to his bedside, and said to them, " Now 
when I am gone, don't mark my resting-place, or they might 
sometime want to erect a monument over my grave." In 
filial respect as dutiful sons, they protested against the idea 
that their honored father should sleep in a nameless grave. 
He listened to their appeal, and consented that they might 
place his initials on his gravestone. But the mere initials, 
"A. M.," were meaningless to the passerby, and in generations 
to come, even his own descendants lost the grave, and so, for 
one hundred and fifty-nine years, Alexander Mack slept in a 
nameless grave. The man should be forgotten, and only the 
cause for which he stood be remembered. Let us honor the 
memory of these men of God, by a faithful devotion of our 
lives to the cause for which they so nobly stood. They were 
sturdy men of energy; men of conviction; men of determina- 
tion to sustain and defend their convictions ; devout men, God- 
fearing, trustful; men of faith, confident in him whom they 
feared ; " Being confident of this very thing, that he which 
hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day 
of Jesus Christ." — Philpp. 1 : 6. 




J. W. Wayland 



Part Two 
The Church Before the Revolution 

By J. W. Wayland 

Today we are reading history, and tomorrow this day's 
work too will have its place in the story of the past : this day 
will become historic. This day is a day of history, because in 
it we are looking back over the way we have come, and are 
linking the past with the present; it will become an historic 
day because we are building for tomorrow, and writing a rec- 
ord that shall be read in a glowing light in every centennial 
year hereafter, until the shadows of time are swept away by 
the glory that shall be eternal. 

This morning we had the story of the Brethren Church 
in the Fatherland — the fatherland across the eastern seas; 
this evening we shall be told how the church has grown since 
Washington was first time President, and has spread north- 
ward, southward, and westward, until the Alleghanies were 
left behind, the Ohio and Mississippi were crossed, the 
Rockies and the Cascade Range were scaled and passed, and 
the humble followers of Christ, our Brethren, at last, like the 
ancient followers of Balboa, looked with joy and wonder upon 
the heaving bosom of the great Pacific; but the task of this 
hour — of this afternoon — is to picture the church in Colonial 
America: in the period falling between the one discussed 
this morning and the one to be discussed tonight. Brother 
Falkenstein's part of this present task has already been well 
performed; he has told us of the mother church at German- 
town and of the congregations that were her immediate off- 

55 



56 BEFORE THE REVOLUTION 

spring ; my part is to give a sketch of the church in the thirty 
or forty years just before the Revolutionary War: of the 
period, I may say, from the birth of George Washington and 
the settlement of Georgia to the battle of Bunker Hill and the 
Declaration of Independence. 

A momentous period was this in American history; for 
in it fall two great wars in which the Americans and the 
English fought against the French, and the beginnings of a 
third one, greater still, in which the Americans and the 
French fought against the English. Braddock's defeat in west- 
em Pennsylvania in 1755 and Wolfe's famous capture of 
Quebec in Canada in 1759 are familiar facts in the long strug- 
gle leading up to the treaty of 1763, by which France gave up 
to England her empire here in America at almost the same 
moment that she surrendered to the same power her empire in 
India. It was in this period under review that Thomas Jeffer- 
son was born; that Washington rose from a forest ranger to 
a general's rank; that Franklin became famous as a printer, 
and an inventor, and won some notoriety for his antipathy to 
the Pennsylvania Dutch; that Jonathan Edwards published 
his work on the freedom of the human will; that Zinzendorf 
the Moravian, Muhlenberg the Lutheran, Schlatter the Ger- 
man Reformed, and Whitefield the Methodist, all came to 
Pennsylvania or neighboring colonies; that the northern In- 
dian tribes rose in that mighty conspiracy under the crafty 
Pontiac; that the Stamp Act was passed by the British Par- 
liament one year and repealed the next; that Patrick Henry 
and James Otis set the land aflame with words and ideas; 
and that there was fired one April morning in the dim light 
at Lexington, near Boston, the shot " heard round the world.'* 

It was a stirring time; a period of aggressive strivings, 
momentous beginnings and of rapid developments; and, 
unfortunately for us, a period of too scanty records. Our fa- 
thers of that time were too busy subduing wild nature, and 
overcoming want and long distances, to pay much attention to 



J. W. WAYLAND 57 

writing history. They were making it, not writing it. We 
have entered into their labors with joy and thanksgiving, but 
we long to know more of their story. 

The Brethren Church in America, prior to the Revolution, 
appears to have been limited to four colonies: The Quaker 
colony of Pennsylvania; the half-Quaker colony of New Jer- 
sey ; the Catholic colony of Maryland ; and the Episcopal colony 
of Virginia ; and with each of the three religious bodies just in- 
dicated the Brethren seem to have had something in common. 
For example, they must have admired the peaceableness and 
simplicity of the Quakers ; they doubtless were in hearty sym- 
pathy with the religious toleration that the Catholics had en- 
deavored to establish in Maryland; and they probably agreed 
Vv^ith the English Church in according a good deal of authority 
to their bishops. Of course, the points on which the Brethren 
did not agree with their neighbors of other faiths would make 
a much longer catalogue. It is likely due to the fact that the 
Brethren did differ from their neighbors on many points of 
doctrine and practice, that they became more or less exclusive 
and sometimes over-conservative. Possibly the suspicion with 
which they came after awhile to regard Sunday schools, high- 
er education, and missionary organizations may be traced to 
these numerous differences in an age that was much more con- 
troversial and antagonistic than the present. 

The fact that the Brethren had not, before the Revolution, 
covered much territory as compared with the present, may be 
appreciated more keenly by noticing briefly the approximate 
dates after the Revolution at which they entered other States 
from the four already named. Some members of the church, 
probably from Pennsylvania or Virginia, settled in what is now 
Clermont County, Ohio, shortly after 1790; from 1799 to 1801 
Brethren from the counties of Shenandoah, Greenbrier, and 
Franklin, in Virginia, located in what are now Hawkins and 
Washington counties, Tennessee. In what is now Muhlenberg 
County, Kentucky, there were about the year 1800 a few mem- 



68 BEFORE THE REVOLUTION 

bers, who had come from North Carolina and Pennsylvania. 
Among these was the noted Wolfe family of Pennsylvania, 
some of whom soon located in Illinois. From Illinois and Ken- 
tucky the Wolfes and others soon worked over into Missouri. 
In Indiana, the counties of Delaware and Madison appear to 
have been visited by Brethren about 1800 or shortly after- 
ward. 

Returning now to the four colonies in which Brethren 
were located prior to the Revolution, we find them most wide- 
ly and firmly established, of course, in Pennsylvania and Mary- 
land. In New Jersey there was apparently only one congrega- 
tion ; and in Virginia there were only the beginnings of settle- 
ments. If, however, we take into account the Ephrata Breth- 
ren, these statements, especially as they relate to Virginia, must 
be considerably modified, for, even prior to 1760, the Ephrata 
Brethren appear to have made in Virginia at least three settle- 
ments, one of which was maintained until near pr quite the end 
of the century. This settlement — the earliest, longest-lived of 
the three — was at Strasburg on the Shenandoah River; the 
second was on New River ; and the third was on or near Cheat 
River. 

The Funks, some of whom are said to have been Ephrata 
Brethren, came from Pennsylvania about 1735 and bought land 
on the North Branch of the Shenandoah River, then in Orange 
County, Virginia, now in Shenandoah County, near the place 
where the three counties of Shenandoah, Frederick, and War- 
ren met, and near at the place where the old town of Stras- 
burg now stands. About 1745 another party from Ephrata, 
among them the Eckerling brothers and Alexander Mack, Jr., 
came down to the Funk settlement, but tarried there only brief- 
ly, going thence far to the southwest, and founding their cabins 
in the wilderness on New River, in what probably is now the 
southwestern part of Montgomery County. About 1747 Mack 
— " Brother Timotheus," as he was then called — returned to 
Pennsylvania, where he soon after made peace with the Ger- 



J. W. WAYLAND 59 

mantown congregation. A few years later the New River set- 
tlement seems to have been abandoned ; and the Eckerlings and 
others, returning first to the Funk settlement and possibly to 
Pennsylvania also, went across the Alleghanies to the north- 
west, and founded settlements on the Monongalia and Cheat 
rivers, in what are now Monongalia and Preston counties. 
West Virginia. In 1757 the tomahawk and firebrand of the 
merciless Indian put a tragic end to this settlement; but the 
sojourn of the Brethren there has been perpetuated in the 
names of Dunker Creek and Dunker Bottom, 

The Funk settlement at Strasburg was doubtless always a 
sort of rallying point for all the Brethren coming to Virginia 
in those early days ; and this fact, together with the fact that it 
was in a more fully protected district, contributed to its great- 
er security and permanence. 

A touching story, true no doubt in its essential features, 
has come down to us from these Sabbatarians at Strasburg. 
It is characteristic of their devotion and humility, and is too 
beautiful to be lost. Among the Brethren who came to this 
settlement on the Shenandoah were Heinrich Sangmeister and 
Anton Hollenthal. They came to Henry Funk's in the fall or 
winter of 1752. Sangmeister was " Brother Ezekiel," and 
Hollenthal was " Brother Antonius." After they had secured a 
piece of land the next spring, and tilled it, and had built a 
cabin thereon, they climbed one day to the top of the mountain. 
The Massanutten Mountain, which divides the Valley here 
nearly in half, sweeps down from the southwest in a long, 
high range, but drops off so abruptly at Strasburg that the 
lofty heights seem almost to overhang the river bank, and 
frown upon the wide, unbroken valley beyond. On the highest 
point of the cliffs, with a broad, clear view to the north and 
east, the two brethren built a little house of prayer ; and as they 
toiled up to it from time to time, and spent hours there in si- 
lent communion and rapt contemplation, with the fruitful plain 
and nourishing river far below, and the blue, bending sky over- 



60 BEFORE THE REVOLUTION 

head, the rude little structure, with its single window toward 
the sunrise, must have grown very dear to them. In their 
dreams it may have seemed to them a very gate of heaven. 

But their dreams met a rude awakening. Their frequent 
and protracted visits to the mountain-top attracted watchful 
eyes and loosed suspicious tongues. It was whispered that the 
brethren were probably engaged in the practice of strange arts 
in the little house on the mountain ; or that they were probably 
engaged in counterfeiting money; or at least that they were 
probably engaged in celebrating the Roman Catholic mass. 
And so one day Colonel James Wood, with several other men 
of authority, rode out the sixteen miles from the country town 
of Winchester, to investigate the alarming reports. Brother 
Ezekiel and Brother Antonius heard of the approach of the 
officials, and acting doubtless upon impulse and fear rather 
than upon the mature judgment of innocence, hastily tore 
down the little house of prayer, and scattered the rough tim- 
bers over the steep face of the precipice. When Colonel Wood 
and his party arrived, and found nothing hidden, no attempt 
at concealment, and no word of explanation held back, they 
expressed only regret that a house so harmless and so holy 
should have been destroyed. Many years later armed men, now 
a group in blue, now a group in gray, ;climbed to the selfsame 
height ; they stood where the brethren had knelt in prayer ; and 
where the prayer-cabin once had been they hoisted their signals 
of cruel war. But prayer and peace have again returned, and 
claimed the summit for their own; the spirit of the mystic's 
dream breathes sweet upon the mountain and stirs gently all 
the plain below. 

" How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him 
That bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace." 

Members of the orthodox branch of the church — that is, 
the main body of the Brethren — were not anywhere established 
in Virginia prior to the Revolution, so far as we know; but, 



J. W. WAYLAND 61 

as already intimated, the beginnings of settlements were be- 
ing made by them about the time the great struggle for in- 
dependence was opening. In the year 1775 or thereabouts John 
Garber of York County, Pennsylvania, came to the Shen- 
andoah Valley to look for a home ; and a year or two later he 
settled with his family at Flat Rock, now in the county of 
Shenandoah. He was a preacher and a shoemaker, and was, 
so far as is known, the first member of the Brethren Church 
proper to locate anywhere in the State. But others soon fol- 
lowed, so that by 1787 thirty-two families of the same faith 
were settled in the Shenandoah Valley. By the next year con- 
gregations had been organized in both the counties of Shenan- 
doah and Rockingham ; and by the year 1800 organizations had 
also been made in Augusta, Botetourt, Franklin, and Floyd 
<:ounties. In Franklin County some Brethren — Elder Jacob 
Miller and others — secured homes almost as soon as John 
Garber located in Shenandoah. In 1780 a colony of Brethren 
settled in Botetourt County, at Amsterdam — ^now Daleville; 
and before the end of the century at least two Annual Meet- 
ings had been held in Virginia : one in Shenandoah County in 
1794, another in Franklin County in 1797. 

Leaving Virginia and following the stream of Dunker 
migration toward its source, we come next to Maryland. With- 
in the present limits of this State there must have been per- 
manent settlements of the Brethren at least a quarter of a 
century before the Revolution ; and by the end of the struggle, 
or shortly afterward, there were organized congregations in at 
least three different counties, namely, Frederick, Carroll and 
Washington. The congregation of Middletown Valley, in 
Frederick County, was organized with fifteen members in the 
year 1760; a fact which indicates that a number of members 
had been living in the vicinity for some time prior to that date. 
In 1778 the Annual Meeting was held at Pipe Creek, in Carroll 
County; so it is practically certain that an organized congre- 
gation of considerable strength existed there at that time. 



62 BEFORE THE REVOLUTION 

This conclusion is strengthened by the fact that the Annual 
Meeting was held at the same place no less than three times 
more before 1800: in 1783, 1787, and 1799. It is said that 
Brethren settled within the limits of the Brownsville congre- 
gation, in Washington County, about 1785. 

The single colonial congregation in New Jersey, already 
referred to, was located at Amwell, in Hunterdon County, some 
thirty or forty miles northeast of Philadelphia. It was or- 
ganized in 1733, with twelve members. 

It was in Pennsylvania, of course, which was the great 
distributing center for the Brethren as well as for most other 
German-Americans, that we find the congregations most nu- 
merous and most populous within the colonial period. It is not 
possible in the few minutes left me to go into details con- 
cerning the early Pennsylvania churches; neither is it neces- 
sary, for those who have preceded me have left little to be 
desired on that topic; but I may, perhaps, with some degree 
of propriety, give a sort of bare catalogue of the names of the 
pre-Revolutionary congregations, so far as I have learned 
them, with the respective dates of organization. 

In 1723 the mother church at Germantown, in Philadel- 
phia County, was organized; and, the next year, Coventry 
church, in Chester County. Lancaster County had at least 
five early colonial churches, counting Ephrata; namely, Eph- 
rata and Conestoga, organized in 1724; Cocalico, organized in 
1734; East Conestoga and White Oak, organized respectively 
in 1735 and 1736. In Berks County were Oley (1732), Lit- 
tle Swatara (1746), and Northkill (1748). Great Swamp 
congregation, in Bucks County, was organized in 1733. York 
County had at least four colonial congregations: Little Con- 
ewago (1738), Big Conewago (1741), Bermudian (1758), and 
Codorus (1758). Antietam congregation, in Franklin County, 
was organized in 1752; Big Swatara, Dauphin County, in 
1756; Upper Conewago, Adams County, in 1756; and Stony 
Creek, Somerset County, in 1762. At some time between 1750 



J. W. WAYLAND 63 

and 1760 certain Tunkers became the first permanent settlers 
in what is now Blair County, locating in the southern end of 
Morrison's Cove. They are said to have held religious serv- 
ices before the year 1756. In addition to the Pennsylvania 
^congregations just named, others were likely organized or 
founded before the Revolution ended, notably in the counties 
of Fayette and Huntingdon. 

During the period under consideration, as has been the 
case during most or all of the time since, the chief secular oc- 
cupation of the Brethren was agriculture, but some of them 
were millers or mechanics: blacksmiths, carpenters, masons, 
weavers, shoemakers, etc. Moreover, the farmer was often able 
to work at several trades himself, and could thus be, under 
ordinary conditions, his own shoemaker, carpenter, or black- 
smith. Together with his versatile wife and his goodly com- 
pany of sons and daughters, the Dunker farmer or miller of a 
century and a half ago was a producer and manufacturer of 
remarkable resource, self-reliant and independent. 

But while the majority of the members of the Brotherhood 
were thus engaged in the more humble pursuits necessary to 
sustain life in a new country, a few devoted and sagacious lead- 
ers were marking out the paths to more far-reaching achieve- 
ments. The colonial period in the history of the Brethren 
Church is remarkable for the number and character of impor- 
tant enterprises that were then inaugurated. Pastoral work, 
church charities, and home missions, opposition to slavery and 
promulgation of peace principles, Sunday schools, higher edu- 
cation, religious and secular printing, theological and devo- 
tional literature, music, art, all had fruitful beginnings or 
powerful revivals ; and in a few of these forms of activity the 
church has only recently recovered for herself the laudable 
position she occupied a century and a half ago. 

In the fall of 1722 Peter Becker, John Gomery, and 
George B. Gantz went on an evangelical mission to the scat- 
tered Brethren in eastern Pennsylvania, visiting the members 



64 BEFORE THE REVOLUTION 

and others In Skippack, Falckner's Swamp, Oley, and else- 
where. This was the beginning not only of pubHc services and 
preaching, but also of pastoral work and home missions by 
the Brethren Church in the New World. Sunday schools are 
said to have been carried on at Ephrata from about 1740 to 
1777; and there is good reason to believe that they received 
attention at Germantown as early as 1738. In 1744 Chris- 
topher Sower printed his famous set of 381 verse-cards that 
were probably used in Sunday school. In 1738 the two Chris- 
topher Sowers opened their printing establishment at German- 
town, which during the next forty years supplied books and 
periodicals to thousands of the German people in Pennsylvania, 
Maryland, A^irginia, and other colonies. The first Sower al- 
manac appeared in 1739, and was followed annually by others 
till 1777. In 1743 they printed a large German Bible, — ^the 
first ever printed in a European tongue in America. The first 
Brethren hymn-book came from the Sower press in 1744, and 
contained a number of new hymns, some of which were prob- 
ably written for that particular book. In 1760 Germantown 
Academy was founded, and it still flourishes. Among the 
founders, patrons, and early trustees of this institution were 
prominent members of the Brethren Church. The younger 
Christopher Sower was a liberal contributor, a leading or- 
ganizer, and a faithful trustee of this academy. Twice he was 
president of the board of trustees. 

Writing and printing were carried on at Ephrata as well 
as at Germantown, though less extensively; and music was 
cultivated by the Ephrata community with great zeal and ef- 
fectiveness. In touching melody, weird harmony, and entranc- 
ing singing the Ephrata mystics were doubtless unparalleled, 
either by the orthodox Brethren of Germantown or by any 
other people. Their hand-made music books, embellished with 
decorations and several colors of ink, were veritable works of 
art, as many that are still in existence abundantly give evidence. 



J. W. WAYLAND 65 

Their skill in pen drawing and engrossed lettering was remark- 
able, judged even by present-day standards. During the 
French and Indian War the doors of Ephrata were open as a 
refuge from the savages; and in the Revolution they received 
the wounded patriots from the bloody field of Brandywine; 
while the somber-clad hosts and hostesses cared for the dying 
and buried the dead, shunning not the contagion that hurried 
many of their own number to the silent company on Zion Hill. 

The most hasty sketch of our Brotherhood during the 
colonial period would be expected to include some notice of the 
beginning, purpose, and development of our Annual Meeting. 

The Annual Meeting was a natural outgrowth of circum- 
stances and conditions, and of the needs of the several con- 
gregations and individuals. During the first thirty years or 
more of the church's history, there was but little organization 
extending to the body as a whole. There was but little oppor- 
tunity or need for such organization; for the church began as 
a small congregation; and for years the congregations were 
small and few. It was only after the membership had become 
more numerous and congregations had become more widely 
separated; and after perplexing questions began to press in 
from without, as well as to arise from within, that the need for 
a General Conference was felt, and the first of such confer- 
ences was held. Soon after the year 1740 the Brethren were 
brought into close contact with other denominations in Penn- 
S5dvania; and then, first in connection with others, afterward 
by themselves, they began to come together in a general repre- 
sentative body to discuss certain cases and questions, and to 
agree upon a uniform course of action to be pursued. In- 
asmuch, therefore, as the first General Conferences were the 
outgrowth of particular needs, they were not held regularly, 
but only when needed; and accordingly it was sometimes a 
number of years from one such meeting to the next. Prob- 
ably the whole number held prior to the Revolution could be 
pounted on the fingers of one hand. Naturally, therefore, 



66 BEFORE THE REVOLUTION 

they were not at first called Annual Meetings, but " big meet- 
ings," or *' big love-feasts ;" and a love-feast seems to have 
formed a part of the usual exercises. 

The first General Conference of the Brethren in Pennsyl- 
vania was probably held in the Coventry congregation in the 
year 1742. Bro. A. H. Cassel, lately deceased, writing some 
ten years ago said : " The first one of which I have any 
knowledge was held in the Conestoga church about 1743, occa- 
sioned by Count Zinzendorf, to which George Adam Martin 
was sent as a delegate." In 1760 another meeting was ap- 
pointed ; but before the specified time came the question pend- 
ing was settled, and the meeting was not held. As time went 
on and the church grew larger the meetings tended to become 
more frequent; and after the year 1775 or 1776 they appear 
to have been held every year. 

For the Brethren Church, therefore, as well as for the 
world at large, the thirty or forty years immediately preceding 
the American Revolution was a period of momentous begin- 
nings and, in some things, of rapid development; and a brief 
summary of the facts as just presented may perhaps serve 
appropriately at this juncture to fix them in memory and at 
the same time to close this review. 

Prior to the Revolution the Brethren in America were all 
to be found in the four colonies of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, 
Maryland and Virginia. The Ephrata Brethren, the mystical 
offshoot led by Conrad Beissel, had established themselves in 
Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, where they cultivated music 
and pen art in connection with their religious exercises, tilled 
the soil, printed books and periodicals, and went out into the 
wilderness from time to time as hermits or as missionaries. 
Before 1760 they had made a permanent settlement at Stras- 
burg in Virginia and temporary settlements on New River and 
Cheat River in the same State. The main body of the church, 
with their headquarters at Germantown, had organized at least 
twenty congregations in Pennsylvania, in a dozen or more dif- 



J. W. WAYLAND 67 

ferent counties; they had one congregation in New Jersey, 
had established themselves in at least two counties of Mary- 
land, and had made beginnings toward settlements in two or 
three counties of Virginia. From the Sower publishing house 
at Germantown, almanacs, Bibles, hymn-books, newspapers 
and numerous other publications both reHgious and secular 
had been issued since 1739. Pastoral work and home missions 
had been begun as early as 1722; Sunday schools had had a 
beginning in 1740 or before ; a permanent academy was estab- 
lished at Germantown in 1760; a poor fund was maintained as 
early as 1761 ; congregational council meetings were held occa- 
sionally from the beginning; a General Conference was in- 
augurated in 1742, and was gradually developed during the 
next generation into the present Annual Meeting. 

Thus the fathers had done their work; they had laid the 
foundations deep and wide ; the colonial era closed upon their 
record, and the national era opened rich in opportunity for 
their sons. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY. 

A History of the German Baptist Brethren. By M. G. Brum- 
baugh; Brethren Publishing House, Elgin, 111. 1899. 

History of the German Baptist Brethren Church. By G. N. 
Falkenstein. Published by the author, at Lancaster, Pa. 1901. 

History of the Tunkers and the Brethren Church. By H. R. 
Holsinger; Lathrop, Cal. 1901. 

Record of the Faithful. By Howard Miller; Lewisburg, Pa. 
1882. 

The Olive Branch. By S. F. Sanger and D. Hays; Brethren 
Publishing House. 1907. 

A History of the Brethren in Virginia. By D. H. Zigler; 
Brethren Publishing House. 1908. 

Literary Activity of the Brethren in the Eighteenth Century. 
By John S. Flory; Brethren Publishing House. 1908. 

The German Element of the Shenandoah Valley. By J. W. 
Wayland; Charlottesville, Va. 1907. 

The Brethren Almanac; Brethren Publishing House. 

The Gospel Messenger; Brethren Publishing House. 



68 BEFORE THE REVOLUTION 

The German Pietists of Provincial Pennsylvania. By J. F. 
Sachse; Philadelphia, Pa. 1895. 

The German Sectarians of Pennsylvania. B3' J. F. Sachse; 
2 vol.; Philadelphia, Pa. 1899 and 1900. 

Xew International Encyclopedia, Vol. VIII, pages 273, 274. 

The German Almanac of Christopher Sauer. By A. H. Cassel, 
in Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, VI, 58-68. 

Quarrel between Christopher Sower and Conrad Beissel. By 
S. W. Pennypacker, in Penn. Magazine, XII, 76-96. 

A Colonial Monastery. By O, Seidensticker, in Century 
Magazine, December, 1881. 



Chapter Three 
The Church in the United States 




J, G. Royer 



Part One 
The Growth to the Mississippi 

By J. G. Royer 

" Some things begin small and get bigger. Others begin 
big and get smaller." There is also a class of things of which 
you really cannot tell what they are going to do — increase or 
diminish, grow or shrivel. In this class are men, nations, 
churches — all social schemes. They may begin small and get 
bigger, or begin big and get smaller. 

Many have remarked concerning the bigness of this meet- 
ing. If we could call to this platform the sainted eight as they 
came from the river Eder two centuries ago, and show them 
this meeting, what would they say ? Growth ! Growth ! 

But the Brethren are not all here. Many of you have 
been at a Union Station in a railroad center like Chicago or 
Kansas City. As you noticed the incoming and outgoing trains 
you were led to remark that judging from appearances one 
would conclude about everybody was traveling'. You boarded 
a train and on reaching home you found all your neighbors 
about their usual duties. Apparently nobody was traveling. 
The same is true concerning this meeting. To some it may 
seem that about all of the Brethren Church is here. But if we 
should visit the hundreds of congregations from the Atlantic 
to the Pacific, from the Gulf into Canada, to say nothing about 
the churches in Europe and far-away India, we should find 
that the Brethren are at home, not here; even though this be 
a large gathering of them. But on that memorable morning 
when the eight came away from the river, all there was of the 

n 



72 GROWTH TO THE MISSISSIPPI 

Brethren Church — every member of it was in the little group 
of eight. How true that " Some things begin small and get 
bigger." 

It has truthfully been said that the history of the Breth- 
ren Church in the United States is written in the agricultural 
growth and development of our country. The Brethren came 
to America farmers. Since here, they have been farmers. 
Wherever they settled farming activities have prospered. 
Among the reasons offered to account for the prosperity of 
these farmers is the one that " They possess the skill of thirty- 
five generations of practice in farming. It is true that we 
learn to do by doing; and to have practice and experience to 
back one is a good thing in any calling. But it is equally true 
that the good old-time religion of Jesus makes men and women 
practical. In speaking of the religion of the Brethren, one 
writer has said : " In their religion they have been nothing, 
if not practical." They were not simply practical tillers of 
the soil. They were practical in other ways. Some were 
millers, blacksmiths, carpenters, masons, shoemakers. The 
farmer was often able to be his own shoemaker, carpenter, or 
blacksmith. This together with his good wife so handy to 
spin and weave, sons with brawn as well as brain, and daugh- 
ters with cheeks that rivaled spring roses, made the Brethren 
farmer of a century ago a producer and manufacturer of 
rather enviable resources. Devotion to Christ and his church 
and to their large families developed the patient persistence 
which, combined with skill and frugality, conquered the wil- 
derness wherever they settled, and earned for them the reputa- 
tion of being the best farmers. 

Twenty families landed at Philadelphia in 1719. Their 
first stop was at Germantown. But they soon scattered to 
parts adjoining. As others were added by immigration and 
conversion ; and as land values in the vicinity of Germantown 
advanced, they pushed farther out, both west and south. By 
the close of the first half century — 1770 — just before the out- 



J. G. ROYER 78 

break of the Revolutionary War, the membership numbered 
nearly 800 souls. All considered, the growth made was com- 
mendable. Their leaders were good faithful men, and the 
ichurch prospered. 

During the war, their faith concerning non-resistance was 
put to a severe test. Their peace principles were regarded by 
the enemies of the church as a pretense for loyalty to England 
and unfriendliness to the new government. The charge was 
utterly groundless, but it brought them under heavy persecu- 
tion. When we remember that they were surrounded by non- 
professors, many of them professed infidels; and among 
churches which raised no voice against war and slavery, but 
upheld both from the pulpit, we get a glimpse of the fearful 
battle fought, and of the glorious victory won by the faithful 
use of the " Sword of the Spirit." We may see, too, how 
they had to bear blame for being " too strict " and for " keep- 
ing good people out of the church." How true 

"'Twas tribulation ages since, 
Tis tribulation still." 

It is a source of comfort to know that those early Breth- 
ren stood faithful, and that the church has re-affirmed those 
gospel principles on every similar occasion since. It is also 
a source of encouragement to know that during those faith- 
searching years the church prospered in soul-winning. Her 
membership grew from less than 800 in 1770 to nearly 1,500 
souls in 1790. These 1,500 were scattered from Germantown 
west as far as Fayette County, Pennsylvania; and south 
through Maryland, Virginia and the Carolinas. 

The war closed with the Treaty of 1783. By it the Colo- 
nies were made free and independent. It also gave the Colonies 
possession of what in history is known as the Northwest Terri- 
tory. In 1787 Continental Congress passed an ordinance for 
the government of the Territory. By its provisions slavery 
was prohibited, and the territory was saved to free men and 



74 GROWTH TO THE MISSISSIPPI 

free labor. This was hailed with deHght by the Brethren and 
all anti-slavery settlers. 

About 1790, Brethren from Virginia and the Carolinas 
crossed the mountains and settled in Eastern Tennessee. 
Others from Virginia settled in what is now Muhlenberg 
County, Kentucky. About the same time colonies, presumably 
from Pennsylvania and Virginia, settled above Cincinnati in 
what is now Clermont County, Ohio, and in the Miami Valley, 
now Preble and Montgomery counties. Some from the Ken- 
tucky settlement went down the Ohio and settled in Cape 
Girardeau County, Missouri, as early as 1795. In 1787 George 
Wolfe, the father of George Wolfe of Liberty, Illinois, moved 
from Lancaster County to Fayette County, Pennsylvania, and 
in 1800, he with his family went down the Ohio and located 
with the Brethren in Muhlenberg County, Kentucky. Eight 
years later (1808), his sons, George and Jacob, crossed the 
Ohio and settled in what is now Union County, Illinois. The 
next year their father made a missionary tour west as far as 
the Missouri Brethren settlement, then crossed into Illinois 
and while holding meetings at Kaskaskia, died and was buried 
there. 

In the meantime, British rule on the Ohio and along the 
Lakes had entirely disappeared, the hostile Indians had been 
subdued, and now the long-stemmed tide of emigration to the 
West over the Alleghanies began to set in. The German- 
American farmers were among the first to push into the Ohio 
Valley. Among them were many Brethren. They moved into 
Ohio in such numbers that before it became a State (1803) 
there were organized churches in the northeastern part; and 
about the same time churches were organized in the Miami 
Country in the southwestern part of the State. From 1790 
to 1825 the Ohio Valley was very rapidly populated, and the 
number of Brethren so increased, both by immigration and by 
conversion, that in 1822 the Annual ^Meeting was held west 
of the mountains. Up to this time it moved from Pennsyl- 



J. G. ROYER 75 

vania to Virginia and back again; but in 1822 it crossed the 
mountains and was held at Canton, Stark County, Ohio. 

Seven years before Indiana became a state (1816) the 
first church of the Brethren was organized within her bound- 
aries. In 1804-5 a colony from Pennsylvania and Virginia 
settled on Four Mile Creek, in what was then known as the 
Twelve Mile Indian Purchase, now Union County, Indiana. 
In this county were fourteen members of the Brethren Church. 
Brethren Jacob Miller and Benj. Bowman, from an adjoin- 
ing county in Ohio, came over and preached for them occa- 
sionally until 1809, when they were organized into a work- 
ing body. 

A few years later, Nettle Creek church in Wayne County 
was organized. Here in 1845, within a mile of where Hagers- 
town now stands, the first meetinghouse in the State, — a 
large brick structure, — was erected ; and here in 1864 the An- 
nual Meeting was held, and Eld. John Kline of sacred mem- 
ory was moderator for the last time. He had made his way 
through the Confederate lines, met with the Brethren, was 
moderator of the meeting, returned to his home in Virginia, 
and two weeks later, when but a short distance from his 
home, he was shot by some party concealed in the woods. 
Thus ended the noble life of a faithful soldier of the Cross. 

Soon after the land was open to settlers in northern 
Indiana, a colony of Brethren and others, having their preach- 
er, (Jacob Cripe), with them, settled on Elkhart Prairie, a 
short distance south of where the city of Goshen now stands. 
In 1830 they had their first love-feast and were formally 
organized. In the early 30's other families came, among 
whom were the Leathermans, the Neffs, the Whiteheads 
and others. The Whitehead meetinghouse — now Maple Grove, 
near New Paris, is on the land entered by the pioneer Bro. 
Samuel Whitehead. It is the oldest church in Elkhart County 
and the first erected by the Brethren in Northern Indiana. 
Immigration and conversions so multiplied the membership 



76 GROWTH TO THE MISSISSIPPI 

of the Brethren in northern Indiana that in 1852 the Annual 
Meeting was held in Elkhart County. 

It has already been stated that George and Jacob Wolfe 
settled in what is now Union County, Illinois, in 1808. These 
two brothers with a number of their neighbors became inter- 
ested in Bible study. In 1812 they sent to Kentucky for 
Bro. John Hendricks. When he came the two Wolfe brothers, 
their wives and ten of their neighbors were baptized, and 
later in the same year, they were organized with George 
Wolfe as their minister. From this begmning, seven years 
before Illinois became a State (1819), and from the results 
of Bro. Wolfe's labors here, and later in Sangamon and Ful- 
ton counties, we have groups of flourishing churches today. 

In the early 40's the Brethren settled on the broad prai- 
ries of northern Illinois. Arnold's Grove, near ]\It. Carroll, 
was the place of beginning. Settlements of Brethren in 
Lee, Ogle and Stephenson counties soon followed; and Rock 
River, West Branch, Yellow Creek and other congregations 
were organized. The churches in northern Illinois grew in 
number and increased in membership so rapidly that in thir- 
teen years (1856) after the first church was organized the 
Annual fleeting was held in Waddam's Grove, Stephenson 
County. And so " The word of the Lord increased ; and the 
number of disciples multiplied ; " and the Brethren Church 
grew in the W^est east of the ^lississippi. 

The growth thus far noted has been largely the result 
of emigration and colonization. A few persons, for the sake 
of better economic opportunities, broke away from their 
home congregation and migrated to the frontier where they 
could procure more and better land for less money, and build 
up better homes for their families. In this new place the 
little colony became a working nucleus around which other 
souls were gathered and sooner or later a new, and usually 
a prosperous congregation grew up. 

Church extension by emigration has advantages; but 



J. G. ROYER 77 

it is also beset with disadvantages, which in some cases have 
proven disastrous. As a rule, emigration proved remuner- 
ative to the emigrant from an economic view point. It also 
had the advantage of extending the borders of the church. 
In a few years the church was extended to many times its 
former limits. But some of the churches from which the 
colonies went out were reduced in membership and weakened 
as a working body. This weakened condition, in some in- 
stances, developed into discouragement, and what was once 
a prosperous congregation dwindled away, and finally be- 
came extinct. In such cases the new congregation on the 
frontier was built up at the sacrifice of the mother congre- 
gation. On the other hand not a few of our Brethren with 
their families moved to the frontier, and being deprived of 
their accustomed church privileges, sometimes even of Chris- 
tian companionship, they grew cold and indifferent spirit- 
ually, became discouraged, and were finally lost to the church, 
— they and their children. 

Such, however, was not the case with all the churches 
from which the colonies went out; neither was it true of all 
who went to the frontier. The colonists did not all lose their 
religion in crossing the Alleghanies. They came to their new 
homes bringing A^ith them both their religion and their Bibles. 
They set up Christian homes faithful to the vows made be- 
yond the mountains. The Lord was cognizant of their long- 
ings to build up his cause, and blessed their humble efforts 
in bringing many of their neighbors to Christ and his church. 
The infant colony increased in number and soul-winning in- 
fluence, and grew into a prosperous church; the prosperous 
church grew into a group of churches. It was in this way 
that the Brethren Church borders on the frontier were ex- 
tended. 

Extension of the frontier church borders like this came 
not by the emigration method; but rather by what may be 
termed the home-community missionary method. This method 



78 GROWTH TO THE MISSISSIPPI 

has always been common with the Brethren. By its applica- 
tion the weakened churches from which the colonies came, 
recruited their ranks and regained and multiplied their power 
to win souls. It is the method by which the Brethren Church 
has grown, and must continue to grow, — the gospel plan. 
By a faithful application of this method the territory which 
at the first organization of a church was large, with here and 
there a few members, has in numerous instances become the 
home of many strong and prosperous congregations. I oifer 
a few examples to illustrate what I mean: 

Conestoga was one of the first organized colonial church- 
es. In 1730 it had about thirty-five communicants. In 1748 
it had 200; in 1770, having by that time received over 400 
into fellowship it had only 86 communicants. From the very 
beginning, Conestoga church was now weakened by emigra- 
tion, then recruited and strengthened by the faithful, earnest 
application of the home-community missionary method. 

What can we say for colonial Conestoga today? for we 
still have her with us. Her territory has been divided and sub- 
divided until there are now within her original boundary 
twenty congregations with a total membership of nearly 
5,000 souls. Nineteen more colonial Conestogas added would 
give us 100,000 souls. 

In 1846 the Annual Meeting was held in the reduced 
territory then known as the Conestoga church. But the Cone- 
stoga of '46 is today seven congregations with a membership 
of over 1600. Growth — growth by the home-community mis- 
sionary method. 

Glade church, among the mountains of western Penn- 
sylvania, had its beginning by emigration. Its territory em- 
braced nearly all of Somerset County. In 1849, the Annual 
Meeting was held in that church. Today the Glade church 
of '49 is eight congregations with a membership of 1600, 
to say nothing about Milledgeville, Illinois; Waterloo, Iowa, 



J. G. ROYER 79 

and other churches which are largely the result of Somer- 
set church growth. 

In 1836, Joseph Harter headed a little band that settled 
on Eel River near the present city of North Manchester, In- 
diana. In 'Z7 Eel River church was organized. Today Eel 
River church of 'Z7 consists of seven congregations with a 
membership of over 1500, together with hundreds in the 
West and Northwest that emigrated from Eel River church. 

About fifty years ago, a half-dozen members from In- 
diana, with Uncle John Metzger of sacred memory, as their 
guiding star, settled on the flat prairies near the present town 
of Cerro Gordo, Illinois. Today we have a group of flour- 
ishing churches in that part of the State ; and but for the rich 
soil of those prairies, I believe we might have doubled the 
number of churches in that section of Illinois. " Rich soil 
makes poor Brethren." — Sprogle. 

In the earlier days church extension by colonization was 
characteristic to a greater or less extent of other sects be- 
sides the Brethren. With some it proved practical, with oth- 
ers, disastrous. It was not all gain and no loss with the 
Brethren, but all considered, it was the best method for them. 
The extensive scattering of church members which resulted 
from the eastern outpouring, into the wilds of the Ohio Val- 
ley, proved very unfortunate to some which attempted ex- 
tension by colonization. There are reasons why it did not 
thus terminate for the Brethren. 

As in colonial times language kept the Brethren dis- 
tinct from other nationalities, so the peculiar belief and prac- 
tice of the Brethren have always, in a manner set them apart 
from their fellowmen. The faith and practice of the Breth- 
ren concerning non-resistance, slavery, temperance, the oath, 
the use of the law, secret orders, amusements, dress, and the 
care of the poor, made them a " peculiar people " in the eyes 
of others, as well as in a sense a separate people. Such set- 
ting apart did much to develop and strengthen fraternal feel- 



80 GROWTH TO THE MISSISSIPPI 

ing for one another and was helpful in holding them together. 
As the fraternal feeling grew in intensity, the desire to be like 
the world and with the world, weakened proportionally. 
Hence each proved the reciprocal of the other. 

Another strong influence in holding the Brethren to- 
gether, and therefore separate from the world, is the fact that 
the Brethren Church has always gotten her preachers from 
the rank and file. When a farmer brother was appointed to 
the ministry, he still remained a farmer after he became a 
preacher. The preachers of the Brethren Church have always 
been of the people, "cjith the people, and among the people 
of the church. In most cases, each little group of emigrants 
that settled in a new place had at least one preacher among 
them. It was these and other like influences in God's guid- 
ing hand that saved the Brethren Church from the loss of the 
members so widely scattered throughout the wilderness of the 
Ohio Valley; and it was these influences that gave God op- 
portunity so graciously to use the scattered members in 
building up his cause wherever they settled. 

The results of these influences are also manifest both 
in the location of their houses of worship and in the simple 
spiritual worship had in them. As farmers, they built their 
churches in or near some grove, — God's first temples. Should 
we now go back in thought to the old Oak Grove church, on 
a bright IMay Sunday morning, and stand among the tall oak 
trees, we should soon witness the assembling of the congre- 
gation — families gathering. ^leetings did not then come 
twice a Sunday; but once in two Sundays — sometimes once 
in four Sundays. On meeting day all Brethren houses were 
closed. Everybody physically able — the whole family, hired 
help included, — were at church. As they met on the green 
near the church, warm greetings were exchanged; for they 
loved to meet and greet each other. They linger near the door 
in quiet converse, for it lacks a few minutes of the appointed 
hour, though the worshipers have all arrived. * * * All 



J. a ROYER 81 

are now in the church. A hymn is announced. They love the 
good old gospel hymns and the glorious congregational sing- 
ing. The whole congregation join in singing, and the " mel- 
ody unto the Lord " rolls out through the open windows and 
doors and heavenward through the lofty tops of the majestic 
oaks. Not the first two and the last stanzas, but every verse 
of the good old hymn is sung. It is the Lord's day and the 
time is theirs. No conventional hour is to limit their sit- 
ting together " in heavenly places." 

Clocks are now placed inside the churches, presum- 
ably, to keep from staying too long; and the preacher has 
a watch lying on the book-board to keep from saying too much. 
In those earlier days of the Brethren, when people gen- 
erally seemed to have more religion than now, the clocks were 
put on the outside of the churches to keep people from being 
too late ; and the preacher looked at the face of the congrega- 
tion rather than at the face of his watch, to regulate the length 
of his sermon. The face of the watch, you know, sometimes 
says thirty minutes, while the face of the congregation is 
saying an hour. My brother, better stick to the face of the 
congregation. (Pardon this digression). 

We are back in the old meetinghouse. The opening 
prayer is concluded and the minister, standing with open Bible, 
requests the singing of " Father I Stretch My Hands to Thee," 
or "A Charge to Keep I Have." Oh, the deep fervency and 
solemn earnestness with which these hymns were sung in 
the days of our early church-going! Deep feeling, not the 
kind which takes emotional forms, but the kind which springs 
from profound sincerity. 

The preacher has read his text but we do not have time 
to hear the sermon. 

The sermon and the closing prayer are done, and the 
parting hymn, " Once More Before We Part," is sung ; and 
the congregation is dismissed to return to their " beautiful 



82 GROWTH TO THE MISSISSIPPI 

farms and blossoming orchards, with the benediction of God's 
peace resting upon every worshiper." 

How many Brethren are in the Uuited States? How 
many are in that portion east of the Mississippi? These are 
questions that have been frequently asked, but with the data 
available they cannot be answered with absolute accuracy. 
It is eminently fitting, however, at this time, to pause, look 
back, and think carefully on what has been done. 

It has already been stated that at the close of the first 
half-centur}' (1770) of the church's history in America, the 
membersip numbered nearly 800 souls. At the end of the Rev- 
olutionarv' period (1790), the membership had increased to 
about 1500 souls, almost double the former number. At the 
time of the division (1881-2) when the Old Order and the 
Progressive Brethren withdrew from the church, the entire 
membership had increased to 58,000. In 1890, one century 
this side of the Revolutionary period, the United States cen- 
sus gives the membership of the three branches at 75,000; 
and in 1905 Dr. Carroll reports their membership at 115,000.* 

Taking his figures ; — Old Order Brethren, 4000 ; and the 
Progressive Brethren, 15,000; gives the Church of the Breth- 
ren, three years ago (1905), a membership of 96,000. With 
the increase of the last three years added, it is safe to esti- 
mate the membership of the Church of the Brethren in the 
United States, and at this Bicentennial Anniversary at 100,000 
and upward. This is exclusive of the churches in Norway, 
Sweden and southern Europe, and of those in India. When 
we recall the fact that two centuries ago the Brethren started 
with a membership of eight, and then set over against that 
number the present membership of upwards of 100,000, we 
find the growth made not only commendable but encourage 
ing as well. 

In considering this question of growth we should not 
overlook the fact that in the earlier period of the church in 

♦Christian Advocate, New York. 



J. G. ROYER 83 

America, her growth was largely by natural increase. To 
some degree it came from the German settlers near them 
who had no church of their own confession in the immediate 
neighborhood; but as there were few preachers and no regu- 
larly established missions, the increase in membership must 
necessarily have been slow. In those earlier years the church 
grew and developed largely by pushing out from the centers 
of church population to adjacent parts and by there establish- 
ing outposts which became nucleuses for future prosperous 
congregations. Today the Church of the Brethren, through its 
Mission Board, is establishing missions in the great cities 
of America and in foreign lands, — means of church growth 
which were unknown to our fathers. 

Since the purpose of this paper is the diffusion of knowl- 
edge concerning the strength of the Church of the Brethren, 
and its whereabouts, it will be proper to speak of the range of 
the churches and where they may be found. To know that 
the church has a large membership in Pennsylvania or Vir- 
ginia does not show that it is found in the various sections of 
these States. 

In Pennsylvania are found the oldest organizations; but 
they are not uniformly distributed over the State. They are 
nearly all in the southern part of the State. A line drawn from 
east to west, dividing the State into two equal portions, 95 
per cent of the membership of the State would be found south 
of this line. In the northern portion of the State there are 
neither churches nor members to be found. 

The churches of Maryland may be regarded as a con- 
tinuation of the churches in southern Pennsylvania. 

In the six New England States there is not a single church 
of the Brethren. 

In Virginia, the churches are in the western part of the 
State. Shenandoah Valley and the valleys tributary may be 
considered the homes of the churches in Virginia. 



84 GROWTH TO THE MISSISSIPPI 

The churches in Tennessee and the Carolinas may be 
considered as a continuation of the churches in Virginia. 

The churches of West Virginia are somewhat scattered. 
They are the western overflow of the Shenandoah Valley 
churches. There are no churches of the Brethren in the west- 
em part of the State, nor in the Pan Handle portion of it. 

The Ohio churches are distributed over the State, ex- 
cept a part of the southern portion. 

The churches of Indiana are found in the northern and 
central portion. If a line were drawn across the State from 
east to west, cutting it into two equal parts, a large majority 
of the membership would be found north of this line. The 
churches of Michigan are in the southern part of the State, 
and are a continuation of the churches of Northern Indiana. 

The Illinois churches are spread over about thirty of the 
one hundred and two counties of the State. There are not 
many churches in Wisconsin and but few in the States touch- 
ing the Gulf. So far as covering the territory of the United 
States east of the Mississippi is concerned, it may truthfully 
be said that not more than a fair beginning has thus far been 
made. 

"A shepherd, finding two sheep missing, called his dog 
and said, * Two sheep missing — go.' She looked into the 
master's face, then left her kennel and little ones and went 
out into the darkness, and soon returned with one sheep. The 
shepherd received it and said, * One sheep missing — go.' 
Again she looked into the master's face, and away in loyal 
obedience into the fiercer storm and darker night. After long 
hours the faithful dog came with the sheep, but fell exhausted 
and died at her master's feet." — Chapman. 

Jesus our Shepherd, in willing obedience to his Father, 
gave his Hfe for the sheep. He says to us, " Millions, millions 
missing — go ye into all the world." We need to look anew 
into his face and obey his command. 



J. G. ROYER 85 

BIBLIOGRAPHY. 
History of the Brethren. Dr. M. G. Brumbaugh. 
The Tunker Church. H. R. Holsinger. 
History of the Brethren Church. G. N. Falkenstein. 
The Bunkers. J. L. Gillin, B. D. 
The Record of the Faithful. Howard Miller. 
German and Swiss settlements in Pennsylvania. Kuhns. 
The Brethren's Almanac. Brethren Publishing House. 
The Gospel Messenger. Brethren Publishing House. 
Encyclopedias. 




Edward Front z 



Part Two 
The Growth to the Pacific 

By Edward Frantz 

[For assistance in procuring the information contained in this 
paper the writer is chiefly indebted to the chairmen or secretaries 
of the various District Mission Boards. Valuable data were ob- 
tained also from Holsinger's History of the Tunkers, from an 
article by John E. Mohler in the State Annals of Iowa for Jan. '06, 
pp. 270-282; from the Missionary Visitor for February, 1906, being 
the Pacific Slope number; from J. H. Moore, office editor of the 
Gospel Messenger^ and from many others. It would perhaps be 
inexpedient to occupy space with the names of all who contributed 
information, but their generous response is none the less appreci- 
ated, as this alone made possible this brief sketch of our trans- 
Mississippi history. — E. F.] 

It was in the year 1818 — an easy date to remember, and 
the day was possibly another eighteen, for it was October 17 
or 18, — ^that there was organized the first church of the Breth- 
ren west of the Mississippi River. At least the evidence points 
strongly to this conclusion. What is certainly known is, that 
on that day, on Whitewater Creek, Cape Girardeau County, 
Missouri, James Hendricks was ordained to the eldership, 
by Elder George Wolfe of Union County, Illinois. As this was 
the first ordination on this side of the river, the presumption 
is that the first church was organized at this time. How many 
there were in that little company is not known, but six years 
later, in 1824, there were fifty members in that, county. 

But it was as far back as 1795 that the Brethren first 
set foot on this side of the big river. In that year Daniel 
Clingingsmith removed from Pennsylvania to Missouri, hav- 

87 



88 GROWTH TO THE PACIFIC 

ing obtained a Spanish land grant, as at that early day this re- 
gion belonged to Spain. At the same time and to the same 
place came Peter Baker, John ^liller and Joseph Niswinger, 
from North Carolina. So far as known, these four were the 
first members of the Brethren Church to cross the Mississippi. 
This bit of information has been preserv'ed in a diary kept 
by Elder John Clingingsmith, son of the pioneer adventurer, 
who died in southern Illinois in 1887. 

In the year 1809, Elder George Wolfe of Kentucky made 
a preaching tour in Illinois and southeastern ^lissouri. On his 
return home he took sick, and died at the old town of Kas- 
kaskia, Illinois, the first death of a member of the Brethren 
Church in that State. This Elder George Wolfe was the father 
of the Elder George Wolfe previously mentioned who figured 
so prominently in the early histor>^ of southern Illinois. 

In 1810, at the home of Joseph Niswinger, one of the four 
pioneer settlers, the first communion meeting was held. It was 
presided over by Elder John Hendricks father of the James 
Hendricks who was ordained eight years later. It is of inter- 
est to note the practices at this meeting differed somewhat from 
those which afterward became common. The rite of feet-wash- 
ing was observed by the single mode, and was practiced after 
the supper. The sisters broke the bread and passed the cup of 
communion the same as the brethren. The salutation was ob- 
served after the communion as a farewell token of love. These 
practices were due, in part at least, to the historical connection 
of the Far Western Brethren, as these pioneer western churches 
were called, with the mother church at Germantown. These 
western settlements were made largely by immigrants from 
Kentucky, and these may be traced, by way of the Carolinas, 
back to Germantown, where feet-washing was always ob- 
served by the single mode. 

But this early settlement of a hundred years ago did not 
prove to be permanent. The congregation continued its work 
for some years and finally dwindled away. Agitation over the 



EDWARD FRANTZ 89 

doctrine of final restoration appears to have been the trouble. 
A number of the members joined the Universalists, being 
won over by a certain Mansfield. Others moved away, and so 
the first effort to establish the Brethren faith in this trans- 
Mississippi country came to nought. 

It was not until about the middle of the century that a 
wave of emigration westward resulted in the establishment 
of permanent congregations. In this movement Missouri again 
had its share, though it does not have the honor of the earliest 
permanent settlement. But at least as early as 1854 there was 
a church in Cedar County, Missouri, presided over by Elder 
William Gish. In this congregation the present office editor 
of the Gospel Messenger was baptized in 1859. Other Mis- 
souri churches, at Centerview, Knobnoster, Osceola, and per- 
haps other places, were established in the early sixties. There 
are now forty-one congregations in that State. 

It seems fitting that the present commemoration of 
our early church history should be held in the State which 
enjoys the honor of having in it the oldest organization of 
the Brethren in the West. After the abortive effort in south- 
eastern Missouri already described, the next congregation 
to be organized was near Libertyville, Jefferson County, Iowa. 
And this, we are glad to say, has lived and prospered to the 
present day. My sources differ as to the exact date. It 
was probably in 1844, though one statement places it four 
years earlier. The number of charter members was the same 
as that in the first company at Schwarzenau. Elder George 
Wolfe of Illinois presided also at this organization, and prob- 
ably had charge of the congregation for some time. The 
iirst ministers were John Garber and Peter Lutz. The next 
church to be organized was Mount Etna, Adams County, 
in 1851. Others quickly followed: the Clarence church in 
Cedar County in '52; Fairview church in Appanoose County, 
in '53; the Monroe County church in '54; and in '55, the 
English River congregation in Keokuk County, now one of the 



90 GROWTH TO THE PACIFIC 

largest in the State.' The next year, 1856, saw the establish- 
ment of the Waterloo church in Black Hawk County, Dry 
Creek in Linn County, Iowa River in Marshall County, and 
two or three others. In 1858 two churchhouses were built, 
one at Libertyville, the other in the Dry Creek church, the 
latter of which is still standing. These were doubtless the 
first churchhouses to be built west of the Mississippi. In 
the Dry Creek church the famous Quinter and McConnell 
debate was held in 1867. There are now in Iowa forty-three 
congregations. 

It will no doubt be a surprise to many of you, as it was 
to me, to find that almost at the same time that these churches 
were being planted on the eastern border of this trans- 
Mississippi country, men and women of the Brethren faith 
were pushing their way by ox-team and wagon across plains, 
deserts and mountains to the shores of the far-off Pacific. 
In 1856, when there were fewer churches west of the 
Mississippi than you could count on the fingers of your hands, 
when the few congregations of Illinois were still known as 
the Far Western Brethren, a church was organized in the 
truly far-western territory of Oregon. Six years before this, 
in 1850, a company of five members had :crossed the plains 
with ox-teams from the State of Indiana. In '53 and '54 
eighteen others joined them, coming in the same way from vari- 
ous eastern States. So that it was the goodly number of 
twenty-three that met, in the summer of '56, at the home of 
Philip Baltimore, six miles north of Lebanon, Oregon, and or- 
ganized themselves into the South Santaam congregation. 
The name was afterward changed to Willamette Valley. In 
the company was one minister, Daniel Leedy, mother's uncle 
to your present speaker. In this connection, we have an inter- 
esting example of the way in which circumstances sometimes 
modified the strict regularity of church methods. When 
Brother Leedy went to Oregon he was in the first degree of 
the ministry. The members there desired to organize, but 



EDWARD FRANTZ 91 

there was no one authorized to take matters in hand. They 
petitioned Annual Meeting for help, but the Conference, on 
account of the great distance and the expense involved in 
sending an elder, simply delegated directly to Brother Leedy, 
the authority to act in the second degree. In 1871 David 
Brower emigrated to Oregon and became their first elder. 

At about the same time the Oregon settlement was made, 
members were locating farther south on the Pacific coast. 
Whether Oregon or California was the first to admit a member 
of the Brethren Church it seems impossible to determine, 
but it was in 1858, two years after the Oregon organization 
that the first church in California was organized. This was 
in Santa Clara County. And it is interesting to observe that 
the leading figure in this movement was another Elder George 
Wolfe, the third of that name, not the son, however, but the 
nephew of the Elder George Wolfe of southern Illinois. 
Brother Wolfe had landed in California a few years before 
this, though I have not been able to fix the exact date. Ac- 
cording to one statement he reached the State in 1856 and 
found two members already there. Another is to the effect 
that he removed from Iowa to California in 1849. At any 
rate, by the time of the organization in '58 there were seven- 
teen members. A few years after Brother Wolfe, and appar- 
ently the entire .congregation, removed to the San Joaquin 
Valley. Later this church became identified with the Pro- 
gressive Brethren. 

In 1862 Brother Daniel Houser removed by wagon to 
California from Carroll County, Illinois. He afterward ac- 
quired some fame as the inventor of the California Com- 
bined Harvester and Thresher. He is best remembered among 
us for his donation to the General Mission Board of an eighty 
acre orange grove, known as the Covina Mission Farm. In 
1864 Peter and Samuel Overholtzer with their families fol- 
lowed Brother Houser, crossing the plains by wagon. Three 
years later, on account of sickness, Peter and family returned 



92 GROWTH TO THE PACIFIC 

east by way of the Isthmus of Panama and New York; but 
went westward again, to Missouri, to Oregon, and finally 
to Covina in southern California. A few members were al- 
ready scattered over these parts. Among the earliest was 
Brother Levi W. Riley who came from Elkhart County, In- 
diana, in the early seventies. In '85, the Covina church was 
organized with eighteen members, under the care of Elders 
A. F. Deeter and J. S. Flory. 

From these beginnings on the coast, have grown the 
nineteen churches now in California, eight in Oregon, and 
ten in Washington, a total of thirty-seven in the States that 
touch the Pacific. 

Thus it appears that the growth of the church from the 
Mississippi to the Pacific has not been a steady advance from 
east to westward as my subject might imply, or as one might 
naturally have supposed. Disregarding that first untimely ef- 
fort in southeastern Missouri, we may say that the establish- 
ing of our faith in this empire of the West began about a 
half-century ago, and almost simultaneously on the extreme 
borders of it. By that method we seemed definitely to set 
ourselves to the task of capturing for Christ and the church 
the whole two thousand miles between. It was a kind of un- 
conscious Joshua-like strategy of setting an ambush both be- 
fore and behind the city that there might be no possible chance 
of escape. How have we made good that implied challenge? 
We have at least succeeded in establishing outposts here and 
there, but we shall see that we ican hardly yet call our victory 
complete. 

There is not time to recount in detail the story of each 
new advance. It was in or about the year 1856 that the first 
church was organized in the State of Kansas. This was the 
Cottonwood church in Lyon County. Elders Jacob Buck and 
Abraham Rothrock presided at the organization. During the 
next twenty-five years the number of churches slowly increased 
to fifteen or sixteen. But the great expansion period of the 



EDWARD FRANTZ 03 

church in Kansas was the decade following the Annual Meet- 
ing at Bismarck Grove in 1883. Such a tide of immigration 
poured in from the eastern States that within six years the 
number of congregations had increased fourfold. There are 
now sixty-three organized churches in the State. 

The first of the twenty-four congregations now in the 
State of Nebraska was organized at Falls City, in 1872, by 
Elders Henry Meyers, John Forney and others. In 1877, 
the St. Vrain church, near Longmont, Colorado, the first in 
that State, was established under the guidance of Elders J. S. 
Flory and George Fesler. In 78, under the direction of Elder 
David B rower of Oregon, a church was organized at Moscow, 
Idaho. In the eighties a few outposts were gained along our 
southern border in Texas, Louisiana and Arkansas. In '91 
Elders John Wise and WilHam Johnson organized a church 
in Logan County, Oklahoma, a plant which has since grown 
into twenty-five congregations. And it was in the middle nine- 
ties, not much more than a decade past, when that assault 
was made on our northern frontier which seemed to take by 
storm the State of North Dakota, and reached on out into 
Washington. 

From these beginnings, we are able to say that the seed 
of the Brethren faith has at least taken root in nineteen of the 
twenty-two States which comprise this trans-Mississippi ter- 
ritory. The present situation in these States in respect to the 
number of local congregations, the number of ministers, and 
the total membership, is given in the table on page 94. 

There are no churches in Wyoming, Utah and Nevada. 
A few members are known to have lived in Utah not long ago, 
and it is quite possible that there are a few isolated members 
in all three of these States. 

By the kindness of Brother Galen B. Royer who prepared 
the statistics with reference to our church for the government 
census in 1891, I have at hand a table of our church member- 
ship in these States at that time. A comparison of the present 



94 



GROWTH TO THE PACIFIC 





,. 


-1908- 


«( 


1891 


STATE 


Congre- 
gations 


Minls- 
ters 


Mem- 
bership 


Mem- 
bership 


1. Kansas , 


63 
43 
41 
20 
24 
19 
25 
10 
8 

10 
8 
7 

10 
4 
2 
1 
1 
1 
1 


188 

97 

93 

53 

48 

101 

55 

40 

30 

34 

26 

17 

8 

7 

5 

7 

3 

3 

1 


3,837 

2,430 

1,771 

1,362 

1,250 

1,225 

875 

542 

526 

398 

355 

340 

252 

111 

89 

80 

76 

35 

16 


3.616 


2. Iowa 


2,746 


3. Missouri 


1,845 


4. North Dakota 





6. Nebraska 


994 


6, California 


211 


7. Oklahoma 





8. Colorado 


110 


9. Idaho 


40 


10. Washington 


26 


11. Oregon 


250 


12. Minnesota 


127 


13. Arkansas 


78 


14. Texas 


95 


15. Louisiana 


10 


16. New Mexico 





17. South Dakota 


102 


18. Arizona 





19. Montana 







298 


816 


15,570 


10.250 



register with the situation seventeen years ago is interesting 
and instructive. There are several features which afford much 
satisfaction. In 1891, the total membership in the States west 
of the Mississippi was reported as ten thousand two hundred 
fifty. The present membership of fifteen thousand four hun- 
dred seventy is a gain of over five thousand, or nearly fifty- 
one per cent. No States in the list at that time are wanting 
from the present list, while there are five States in the present 
table which are missing in that of '91. Three of them, Mon- 
tana, Arizona and New Mexico, now have a single church 
each, while in two of them the growth has been remarkable. 
North Dakota, which reported no members in '91, has risen 
to the sixth place in the number of its churches (twenty), and 
to the fourth place in respeect to membership (thirteen hun- 
dred sixty-two). Oklahoma, also absent from the earlier 
table, now has eight hundred seventy-five members, holding 
the seventh place in this respect, while in the number of its 



EDWARD FRANTZ 95 

churches (twenty-five), it stands fourth. California has 
grown from two hundred eleven members in '91 to twelve 
hundred twenty-five at present. Other States have made sig- 
nificant gains. For all this we should be deeply grateful. 

But there are other considerations that give cause for just 
concern. We note with regret that two of the States having 
the largest membership show a decline in this period. Iowa, 
which had twenty-seven hundred forty-six members in '91, 
today has twenty-four hundred thirty, a loss of three hundred 
sixteen. Missouri had eighteen hundred forty-five members in 
'91, and today has seventeen hundred seventy-one, a loss of 
seventy-four. Kansas, which has the largest membership of 
any of the western States by fourteen hundred, shows a gain 
of some two hundred. But in the gathering of these data it 
was learned that one of the four districts into which the State 
is divided at one time had about four hundred members more 
than it has today. We have then good reason to suspect that 
if we had the full data for a comparison of present conditions 
with those of eight or ten years ago instead of seventeen, the 
showing would be less favorable. 

Of course it must be remembered that these States just 
mentioned have lost heavily by emigration. The North Dakota 
drafts were strong upon Iowa and Missouri, as were those of 
Oklahoma upon Kansas. The facts appear to be that those 
States into which the tides of immigration have flowed 
strongly in recent years show marked gains, but this has been 
at the expense of the older States which have not been able to 
make good the losses. Let us be just, too, to our brethren 
east of the big river, and remember that no small part of our 
total gain of five thousand or fifty per cent must be credited to 
them. In other words, we have been moving around a good 
deal, but we have not been very successful in winning new 
adherents to our cause. 

These facts are pointed out, not for the purpose of cen- 
suring our migration habit, for it is certainly a valuable means 



96 GROWTH TO THE PACIFIC 

of church extension, but simply to warn us against mistaking 
migration for evangeHzation. The former may be an effective 
instrument of the latter but is not a substitute for it. And if 
at some points we have fallen back in numbers, even though 
it be because of emigration, is not that fact a call to us to re- 
double our evangelistic zeal ? Why should not we of the older 
settled States be able to send out from us those who will carry 
the faith into new communities, while we at the same time 
keep growing in numbers and power? Must we not do this 
very thing if we are to take for Christ and his kingdom this 
empire of the West? 

In the questionaire which secured the facts presented here, 
one question was: Has the number of congregations or of 
members in your district increased or decreased in recent years, 
and if the latter, what do you consider the cause? The 
answers show that in the more newly settled States there has 
been an increase in both the number of churches and the total 
membership. But what do they show in the States of Missouri, 
Iowa, Kansas and Nebraska? In these four States there are 
twelve districts. One of these did not answer this question. 
One reported a gradual increase in both particulars. One 
answered, " about the same." Nine of these twelve districts 
reported that either in total membership or in the number of 
churches, and most of them in both particulars, there had been 
a decrease. As to the cause, one factor was emigration, but 
this was not the whole explanation. Some said : " lack of 
resident ministers." One said : " inabihty to keep up interest." 
We would like to push the question farther back and ask : Why 
unable to keep up interest? Has the gospel message lost its 
power over the consciences of men? There was one answer 
that impressed me most deeply. Let us ponder well its deep 
significance : ** The fathers of this generation have passed 
away, and there are none to take their places, especially in the 
ministry." 

Now the first part of that answer is easy enough to under- 



EDWARD FRANTZ 97 

stand. We could not expect the fathers to stay with us al- 
ways. But why are there none to take their places? Where 
are those who ought to be stepping into the places vacated by 
the fathers ? And note that it says, " especially in the minis- 
try." And this in the face of the fact that according to the 
register there is an average of nearly three ministers to a con- 
gregation. Do you remember the results obtained by Brother 
Royer in his investigation of the ministerial situation three 
years ago? The active ministerial force of the church has 
suffered a decline, and the natural accompaniment of this is a 
decline in membership. We should not magnify unduly these 
unfavorable facts, nor should we shut our eyes to them and 
fail to lay upon our hearts the lessons which they teach. 

It is difficult to get a just impression of the size of this 
territory, and to realize how much of it we have left untilled. 
Three States we have not touched at all. Three others have 
just one congregation each. Six others have fewer than five 
hundred members each. Nearly four-fifths of the whole mem- 
bership resides in six States, and considerably more than half 
of it in three. A single State lacks only thirty of having one- 
fourth of the entire trans-Mississippi membership. We se- 
cured estimates of the unoccupied territory in the various 
districts, that is, of that fraction of each district which is not 
covered at all by Brethren settlements. These estimates ranged 
all the way from three-fifths to nine hundred ninety-nine one 
thousandths. 

Look, for example, at that State which has the largest 
membership. Kansas is divided into four districts, the two 
western ones including Colorado. In the southwestern district, 
not counting the Colorado portion, there are thirty-seven 
counties. The churches of this district are in fourteen of these 
counties. There are eighteen churches, a little more than one 
to each of the fourteen counties, while in twenty-three counties 
we have no churches at all. The whole population of this 
district is three hundred eighteen thousand. The Brethren 



9S GROWTH TO THE PACIFIC 

membership is eleven hundred forty-five, a little more than one- 
third of one per cent of the whole. In this district there are 
two hundred and thirty-one thousand people who do not go 
to Sunday school, any Sunday school. That is to say, for each 
member of the Brethren Church in that district there are two 
hundred human souls, absolutely virgin soil, like the unbroken 
sod on which some of them live, waiting the gospel plow and 
the seed of truth. 

Let us lift our eyes and take a wider view. Between the 
Mississippi and the Pacific are more than two millions of 
square miles and more than twenty millions of people. If we 
divide this territory and its population among its two hundred 
ninety-eight Brethren congregations, to each one will fall the 
evangelization of about seven thousand square miles of coun- 
try, inhabited by some seventy thousand people. If we hold 
the ministry alone responsible for this work, each minister will 
have a pastorate of twenty-six hundred square miles contain- 
ing twenty-five thousand people. But let us make each one 
of the fifteen thousand five hundred seventy members responsi- 
ble for his share, and he will have assigned to him a company 
of some thirteen hundred persons, about one thousand of whom 
do not profess the name of Christ. That is to say, for every 
man, woman, and child of the Brethren Church west of the 
Mississippi River, there are a thousand souls who need to be 
brought into the kingdom of Christ. The cities, the great 
centers of population and activity and sin, we have scarcely 
touched. In a few of them like Des Moines, Kansas City, Los 
Angeles and some others we have made a bare beginning. But 
the country and the farm, that which has been our own peculiar 
province, is still far from being ours. And this, be it remem- 
bered, is all in the homeland. We are saying nothing of that 
still larger part of the church's work in the big world outside. 

Has the Brethren Church of the West a field? Can you 
see in these facts and figures any call to work ? Any individual 
message to you? I would yield to no one in appreciation of 



EDWARD FRANTZ 99 

what has been accomplished, but I wonder if we had cared 
as much for heavenly as for earthly treasure, whether we 
might not just as well have made that total fifty instead of 
fifteen thousand. Let us thank God for the fifteen thousand; 
for they are more precious in his sight than fifteen thousand 
worlds of dead matter. And any one of them in the great day 
of God Almighty you would count of more worth than worlds 
if you were that one. But the thing that weighs upon me like 
a load of lead is the fact that for every such one there are a 
thousand others over these wide plains who do not know the 
beauty of our simple gospel faith, who do not acknowledge 
even the lordship of our Christ — a thousand other human 
souls, every single one of which is just as precious to some- 
body as yours is to you. 

Do you wonder then that opportunity is the only thing 
that I can see? That my thoughts turn, in spite of me, from 
any satisfied contemplation of past achievements to the 
mightier question of the future ? What are we going to do in 
the next hundred years? You say that question is out of 
order here. I think not. This rich Pentecostal feast might 
have been richer still if we had been wisely planning for it all 
through the last hundred years. It is not too soon to lay our 
plans for our tercentennial meeting. You and I, indeed, will 
not be there. Few, very few, of our children will be there. 
Our grandchildren and great-grandchildren will be at that 
great meeting. Ah! that's the burning question: Will they? 
Where will they be? I want them there. Don't you? And 
so I am going to move you. Brother Moderator, on this Bicen- 
tennial Pentecostal day, the appointment here and now of the 
western section of the tercentennial committee ; that section to 
consist of fifteen thousand five hundred seventy, choice and 
picked, from the sunset side of the Mississippi River; the 
duty of that committee to be to see to it that our grandchildren 
and great-grandchildren are present at the tercentenary cele- 
bration of the Brethren Church, and to see further, if it so 



100 GROWTH TO THE PACIFIC 

please our heavenly Father, that when at that meeting the 
roll is called of the trans-Mississippi States, the register shall 
show, not fifteen, but fifteen hundred, thousand. 

That's idle dreaming? I tell you, my brethren, it's the 
serious task we ought to lay upon our hearts. Not that we 
may glory in mere numbers, but because human souls are of 
such priceless worth. Why, even so, we shall have used but 
one-tenth our opportimity, for there are a thousand, not a hun- 
dred, for every one of us, waiting to be gathered in. Nay, 
more ; for this thousand is here on the ground right now, and 
who would dare to guess the millions in this western empire 
at the end of another century? Can we do this much? We 
can, because we must. We can? I mean that God can do 
even much more than we are able to ask or think, if only he 
can find good tools to work with. Yes, by his grace, it will be 
done. With praise to God for what he hath already wrought 
among us, and with hope and faith in what he will yet do, 
we'll forget the things which are behind, and stretch forward 
to the things which are before. 



Chapter Four 
The Voice of God through the Church 




L. W. Teeter 



Part One 
What the Church Has Heard from God 

By L. W. Teeter 

To tell what the church has heard from God is nothing 
less than to tell what God has said to the church. 

God being perfect, he gave to the church a perfect mes- 
sage, with the design that the church should hear and accept 
that message in its perfection. 

It is therefore important, in the first place, to understand 
what is meant by the word " church," in our subject. The 
term " church," as used in our subject, must necessarily be 
understood to mean the assembly of persons converted to God 
by the hearing of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, proclaimed by 
himself, founded and organized by him into a covenant body 
of worshipers during his personal ministry on earth, with him- 
self as its head. That body of which Jesus said, that the gates 
of hell should not prevail against it (Matt. 16: 18). That 
organization which in the first centuries of its existence en- 
dured the severest persecutions, — even martyrdom; in which 
many of its most faithful adherents sealed their faith with 
their own life's blood. That body whose Chief Shepherd pre- 
served a succession of faithful representatives of its doctrine, 
faith and love through the long, dark period of the Middle 
Ages ; and nourished it through the years of the great Refor- 
mation of Martin Luther and others ; and until it resumed its 
ancient organic form, in the year 1708, at Schwarzenau, Ger- 
many ; of which Alexander Mack, Sr., wrote, saying : " We 
have, indeed, no new church, nor any new laws: but in sim- 
plicity and true faith we desire to remain with the old :church 

103 



104 WHAT THE CHURCH HAS HEARD 

which Christ instituted through his blood, and to follow the 
commandment which was from the beginning '' (Mack's Writ- 
ings, p. 138). That body, which from this time on, has by 
regular succession expanded and developed into its present 
magnitude, as the General Assembly of the Church of the 
Brethren. 

The message, therefore, which the church of 1908 has 
heard from God, is the same message that her primitive ances- 
tress heard from God, through his Son Jesus Christ, during 
his personal ministr}' and teaching among his disciples; and 
his spiritual ministry from his resurrection to his ascension; 
and through the inspiration of his chosen apostles. 

Thus the entire message was delivered to the church 
during a period of nearly a century from its beginning. As 
to the contents of that message, our only reliable source of the 
most direct information is the last t%venty-seven books of the 
Holy Bible, as canonized by the best ecclesiastical authority, 
many centuries ago, and entitled The New Testament of Our 
Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. 

This blessed volume has ever been held as strictly sacred 
and divine by all Christendom. It has stood the test, and 
been preserved, as we must believe, by superhuman power, 
and kept intact and inviolate against the fiercest opposition 
of all its enemies and critics. God has also shown the church 
throughout this great message the absolute, self-evident proof 
of the divine authenticity of the Old Testament, composed of 
the first thirty-nine books of the Holy Bible. This proof 
exists in the fact that the contents of God's message to the 
church show the complete fulfillment of all the Old Testament 
types, shadows and prophecies predicted in it thousands of 
years before their fulfillment. Besides, when they are com- 
pared, either one proves the authenticity of the other; and 
their agreement shows that they have one common origin, and 
that the primar\- purpose of both is the salvation of the world, 
through the Son of God. Xow, the church is told that " God 



L. W. TEETER 105 

so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that 
whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have ever- 
lasting life" (John 3: 16). This great love God had when 
Adam and Eve were overtaken in sin, and when he declared 
to the serpent that the seed of the woman should bruise his 
head, and that he should bruise his heel (Gen. 3: 15). 

In this very emphatic declaration God already indicated 
his determination to exercise his great love, through the pro- 
duction of a Son, who should suffer in behalf of the yet unborn 
sinful world; and through his suffering overcome the w.orld, 
conquer and completely subdue Satan, and destroy all his 
works (Heb. 2: 14; 1 John 3:8). 

In about four thousand years God fulfilled this great 
promise by sending his angel Gabriel to the virgin Mary to 
notify her that she should bring forth a son, whom she should 
name Jesus, and to say to her : " The Holy Ghost shall come 
upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow 
thee ; therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee 
shall be called the Son of God (Luke 1: 35). She was told 
to call his name Jesus because he should save his people from 
their sins (Matt. 1: 26); and also Emmanuel, because he 
would be " God with men " (Matt. 1 : 23). Immediately after 
Jesus' birth, God sent his angel to notify the shepherds who 
were watching their sheep by night, saying : " Behold, I bring 
you glad tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. 
For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, 
which is Christ the Lord." Suddenly there was with the 
angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and say- 
ing, " Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good 
will toward men" (Luke 2: 8-14). Thus was the "seed of 
the woman " developed, and God's first great promise fulfilled 
(Gen 3: 15). As to the divinity of his Son, God has shown 
the church, by Matthew, an unbroken line of his ancestors, 
from his birth, through forty-two generations, back to the 
patriarch Abraham, his great covenant- father (Gal. 3: 16), 



106 WHAT THE CHURCH HAS HEARD 

(Matt. 1: 1-17). By Luke he records a complete line of his 
progenitors through seventy-five generations to Adam, and 
back to himself, the Creator (Luke 3: 23-38). By John he 
declares his existence with himself before the creation of the 
first man, saying : " In the beginning was the Word, and the 
Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was 
in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; 
and without him was not any thing made that was made. In 
him was life, and the life was the light of men ; " and that this 
" Word was made flesh and dwelt among " his people who 
"beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the 
Father, full of grace and truth " (John 1 : 1-14). 

The church is also informed that " there was a man sent 
from God," miraculously produced and filled with the Holy 
Ghost from his birth, " whose name was John," who came for 
a witness to bear witness of Jesus, that all men through him 
might believe in Jesus (John 1 : 6, 7). When John saw Jesus 
coming to him, one day, he said : " Behold the Lamb of God, 
which taketh away the sin of the world ; " and " that he should 
be made manifest to Israel, therefore am I come baptizing 
with water." " I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like 
a dove, and it abode upon him. And I knew him not : but he 
that sent me to baptize with water, said unto me. Upon whom 
thou shalt see the Spirit descending and remaining on him, 
the same is he which baptizeth with the Holy Ghost. And I 
saw, and bare record that this is the Son of God " (John 1 : 
29-34). Again, at Jesus' baptism, God himself, by audible 
voice, was heard to say : " This is my beloved Son, in whom I 
am well pleased " (Matt. 3 : 17). Again, on the mount of trans- 
figuration, Peter, James and John witnessed that Jesus' face 
did shine as the sun, and his raiment was white as the light, 
and that Moses and Elias talked with him, and a bright cloud 
overshadowed them, and a voice out of the cloud said, " This 
is my beloved Son; hear ye him" (Matt. 17: 1-5). Of this 
event, Peter testifies later, saying : " We have not followed 



L. W. TEETER 107 

cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the 
power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ; but were eye- 
witness of his majesty." " For he received from God the 
Father, honor and glory, when there came such a voice to 
him from the excellent glory : This is my beloved Son in whom 
I am well pleased. And this voice which came from heaven, 
we heard, when we were with him in the holy mount " (2 Peter 
1: 16-18). Jesus, himself, in his prayer, refers to his pre- 
existence, with the Father, saying ; " And now, O Father, 
glorify thou me with thine own self, with the glory which I 
had with thee, before the world was" (John 17: 5). In 
about forty days this prayer was answered. His disciples were 
with him, when he ascended, and beheld him, until a cloud re- 
ceived him out of their sight. Then two men in " white 
apparel " stood by them, and said, " Ye men of GaHlee, why 
stand ye gazing up into heaven? this same Jesus which is 
taken up from you into heaven shall so come in like manner as 
ye have seen him go into heaven" (Acts 1: 11). Lastly, the 
promised Comforter testifies of Jesus' divinity. Shortly before 
his crucifixion, Jesus had said to his disciples : " It is expedient 
for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter 
will not come unto you: but if I depart, I will send him unto 
you " (John 16: 7). " He shall testify of me " (John 15 : 26). 
In about ten days after his ascension, at Pentecost, the Com- 
forter came, according to Jesus' promise, — proving conclu- 
sively his arrival at the right hand of the Father. Besides, his 
testimony of all that Jesus had said and done, both confirmed 
Jesus' ministerial work among men; and showed the approval 
of the Father in heaven of the same. 

Now the church is informed that Jesus is received up in- 
to heaven and is set down on the right hand of God, (Mark 
16 : 19.) that he might be a merciful and faithful High Priest in 
things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins 
of the people. (Heb. 2: 17.) Shortly before his death, Jesus 
said to his disciples : " Be of good cheer, I have overcome the 



108 WHAT THE CHURCH HAS HEARD 

world." (John 16: 33.) After being seated upon his heav- 
enly throne, he says to the church, by revelation : "To him that 
overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even 
as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his 
throne." (Rev. 3: 21.) 

After the descent of the Holy Spirit, Peter testifies of 
Jesus' majesty with the Father, saying: "Those things which 
God before had showed by the mouth of all his prophets, that 
Christ should suffer, he hath so fulfilled. Repent ye therefore 
and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the 
times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord ; 
And he shall send Jesus Christ, who before was preached unto 
you: Whom the heavens must receive, until the times of res- 
titution of all things, which God hath spoken by the mouth 
of all his holy prophets since the world began. For Moses 
truly said unto the fathers, A prophet shall the Lord your 
God raise up unto you of your brethren, like unto me ; him shall 
ye hear in all things whatsoever he shall say unto you; and 
it shall come to pass, that every soul, which will not hear that 
prophet, shall be destroyed from among the people." (Acts 
3 : 18-23.) To the Hebrews, it was said, also, that " God, who 
at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past 
unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days 
spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all 
things, by whom also he made the worlds; who being the 
brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, 
and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he 
had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand 
of the Majesty on high." (Heb. 1; 1-3.) God has also 
shown the church, that saving grace can be possessed only 
in deep humility, simplicity and self-denial. Through the deep- 
est humility of his Son, God has made his grace, " that bring- 
eth salvation, to appear unto all men," teaching them, that de- 
nying ungodliness and worldly lusts, they " should live soberly, 
righteously, and godly in this present world; looking for 



L. W. TEETER 109 

that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God 
and our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ ; who gave himself for 
us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify un- 
to himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works." (Titus 2 : 
11-14.) 

God said of his Son, before his birth, " He shall be great, 
and shall be called the Son of the Highest." (Luke 1 : 32.) He 
was in the form of God, and equal with God ; but he took on 
himself the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness 
of men: he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, 
even the death of the cross. (Philpp. 2: 6-8.) 

Consistent with his humble mission into the world, God 
knowing that his Son should be the Founder, and Head of 
his church on earth, he so provided that his nativity, manner 
of life, character, and teaching, should preserve inviolate the 
great fundamental principles of humility, simplicity and self- 
denial, that the church he would establish, might be able to 
receive his atonement ; and that those principles might, in turn, 
ever preserve the church against all ungodliness and worldly 
lusts. 

Accordingly, God selected the human parentage of his 
Son, from the most humble citizens, of the despised, rejected 
town of Nazareth. He was born in the humble town of Beth- 
lehem ; and was wrapped in " swaddling clothes," and laid in 
a manger, indicating the absence of all pomp and vain dis- 
play, when it was known that the new-born child, was an in- 
fant King. Again, the annunciation of his birth was not made 
to the Jewish Sanhedrin in a decorated court of the temple, 
in the capital city Jerusalem; but to the humble shepherds, 
who were faithfully watching their sheep, in the field by night. 
Again, God, through his Son, has shown the church that true 
greatness exists only in great littleness and simplicity. At 
the age of twelve years, when in the temple with the Jewish 
doctors, Jesus made a striking demonstration for the future 
church, of the fact that it is possible for perfect simpUcl^ 



110 WHAT THE CHURCH HAS HEARD 

and humility to clothe a noble character, having deep wisdom, 
great understanding, and a burning zeal to be about the heav- 
enly Father's business; and that it is possible for anyone, un- 
der such conditions, to increase in wisdom and to grow in 
favor with God and man; and enjoy a full measure of God's 
grace. (Luke 2: 40-52.) Again, when Jesus entered upon his 
public ministry, and wanted to be baptized, he came to John, 
his humble forerunner, whom God had sent from heaven to 
baptize him. 

John's nativity was also as miraculous, and his life as 
simple and peculiar as was that of Jesus. His raiment was 
camel's hair, and a leathern girdle about his loins; and his 
meat was locusts and wild honey. (Matt. 3:4.) Thus we can 
see that God's way of inducting the Great Founder of his 
ichurch, into his official position as such, was by the employ- 
ment of the simplest and most humble agencies; and that all 
of them signified God's design that the principles of simplicity, 
deep humility, and self-denial, must be as prominently main- 
tained in the polity of the church so founded, as they were in 
the Founder, and in the means he employed in founding it. 

Again, during his entire ministry, Christ associated most 
with the humble, — the common people, — even with little chil- 
dren, all of whom he loved! Thank the Lord! Instead of 
making his home in proud Jerusalem, he would retire to the 
humble village Bethany, and lodge with a broken-hearted, 
parentless family. Again, when Jesus chose his twelve dis- 
ciples, he selected them from the common classes. A number 
of them were humble fishermen, men who cared not for worldly 
reputation and riches. 

Although Jesus was equal with God, and the heir of all 
the world, he made himself equal with the poor. He owned no 
home. When a certain scribe said unto him : " Master, I will 
follow thee whithersoever thou goest," he replied, saying: 
" The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests, 
but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head." (Matt. 



L. W. TEETER 111 

8: 20.) Jesus became poor for the sake of the humble poor. 
" For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though 
he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through 
his poverty might be rich." (2 Cor. 8: 9.) 

Once, on his return to Nazareth, he went into the syna- 
gogue, and read a prophecy from the book Isaiah, predicting 
the character of his mission into the world, to be, especially 
in behalf of the poor, and the most distressed classes of men, 
as follows : " The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he 
hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor ; he hath sent 
me to heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to the 
captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty 
them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the 
Lord." When he had read this prophecy, " the eyes of all them 
that were in the synagogue were fastened upon him." And 
he said unto them, " This day, is this Scripture fulfilled in your 
ears." (Luke 4: 18-21.) 

Again, only four days before his crucifixion, Christ made 
a public exhibit of the real characteristics of his kingship 
and kingdom, by his triumphal entry into the city of Jeru- 
salem. He comes, not in worldly pomp and grandeur, sitting 
in a stately chariot drawn by a few spans of gay, prancing 
horses, in flashy harness, — not arrayed In princely suit, in 
vestures of silk, with a golden chain about his neck, and a ring 
on his hand. But he comes, clothed in his peculiar seamless 
coat, meek and lowly, according to the ancient prophecy: 
" Fear not, daughter of Zion ; behold thy king cometh sitting on 
an ass's colt," (John 12: 14, 15.) — a donkey, — to men, a beast, 
naturally homely ; yet necessarily borrowed now, because of its 
fitness for this special service ; and covered with men's gar- 
ments, instead of a saddle. The church can never escape the 
force of the divine teaching of this simple performance. The 
prophecy already cited, proves this peculiar display, not an ac- 
cident, but to be for a divine purpose. 

Think of the only Son, and sole heir of God, who owns 



112 WHAT THE CHURCH HAS HEARD 

the world, entering this magnificent metropolis in such a meek, 
lowly and unpretentious manner, as if unable to appear better ! 

By this exhibit, God has shown the church his way of in- 
augurating the Prince of Peace into his kingly office, teaching 
the church again, that true greatness scan only be attained 
through deep humility, simplicity and self-denial. And that, 
if such lowly and simple means were required of Jesus to en- 
able him to become the " blessed and only Potentate, the King 
of kings, and Lord of lords," (1 Tim. 6: 15.) most conclusively, 
the same principles must be developed in his subjects, to meet 
his divine approval. 

This humble deed of Christ should impress the church of 
1908, that the only way to be exalted, is God's way. Jesus 
taught, saying : " Whosoever exalteth himself, shall be abased, 
and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted." (Luke 14: 11.) 
Jesus was exalted by humbling himself. 

Again, the church is informed that God has, through his 
Son, established in her body, his great eternal love for all men ; 
that her members should exercise the same great love among 
themselves, unto their own perfection, and unto the salvation 
of all men. "God is love." God showed the church the greatness 
of his love, by giving his only Son for the world. " The Father 
loveth the Son." The Son showed the church the greatness of 
his love, by giving his life for her, as her Redeemer and 
atonement. " Greater love hath no man than this, that a man 
lay down his life for his friends." He commands the mem- 
bers of the church to love one another as he loved them, — 
love one another so much as to die for one another. He gave 
them the test by which they could know for themselves that 
they have that great love, as follows : " He that hath my com- 
mandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me." (John 
14: 21.) " If any man love me, he will keep my words." (John 
14: 23.) " As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you: 
continue ye in my love. If ye keep my commandments ye 



L. W. TEETER 113 

shall abide in my love, even as I have kept my Father's com- 
mandments, and abide in his love." (John 15: 9, 10.) 

God has also by inspiration delivered to the church the sal- 
utation of the " Holy Kiss," of love, as a method of fraternal 
greeting to be observed among the members of the church, 
together with the right hand of fellowship, having purified 
their souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit, unto un- 
feigned love of the brethren; with whom it is the outward 
expression, that they love one another with a pure heart fer- 
vently. (1 Pet. 1: 22.) 

While the literal act of the salutation is much the same as 
commonly practiced, there are, however, new meanings given 
it, in God's last message to the church. It is called both " holy 
kiss," and " kiss of charity," or love. (Rom. 16 : 16 ; 1 Cor. 
16: 20; 2 Cor. 13: 12; 1 Thess. 5: 26; 1 Pet. 5: 14.) 

The church is told also, that she is " the salt of the earth," 
and " the light of the world," and, to let her light so shine be- 
fore men that they may see her good works, and glorify her 
Father which is in heaven. (Matt. 5: 13, 16.) She is to pro- 
claim Jesus' invitation : " Come unto me all ye that labor and 
are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke 
upon you, and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, 
and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, 
and my burden is light." (Matt. 11 : 28-30.) Accordingly, the 
members of the church are warned not to be unequally yoked 
together with unbelievers: that righteousness has no fellow- 
ship with unrighteousness ; that light has no communion with 
darkness ; that Christ has no concord with Belial, (or worthless 
fellow,) ; that a believer has no part with an infidel; and that 
the temple of God has no agreement with idols. 

To the church, it is said, "ye are the temple of the liv- 
ing God, as God hath said, I will dwell in them and walk in 
them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. 
Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, 
saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will 



114 WHAT THE CHURCH HAS HEARD 

receive you, and will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my 
sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty." (2 Cor. 6: 14- 
18.) 

Here, the members of the church are plainly told to have 
no fellowship, whatever, with any other organization or ad- 
verse party, and that any such attempt will disqualify them 
to be sons and daughters of God, and to meet his approval. 
They are also told not to be conformed to this world but to 
be transformed, by the renewing of their mind, that they may 
prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of 
God; (Rom. 12: 2.) as obedient children not fashioning them- 
selves according to their former lusts, in their ignorance; 
(1 Pet. 1: 14.) and not to love the world, neither the things 
that are in the world. (1 John 2: 15.) 

They are told to have the same mind one toward another ; 
(Rom. 12: 16.) to all speak the same thing, that there be no 
divisions among them; and that they be perfectly joined to- 
gether, in the same mind, and in the same judgment. (1 Cor. 
1 : 10.) " For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spir- 
itually minded is life and peace." (Rom. 8: 6.) 

The members of the church are told, also, to be at peace 
among themselves; (2 Thess. 5: 13.) and, as much as possible, 
to live peaceably with all men ; (Rom. 12 : 18.) to settle all their 
difficulties among themselves; (Matt. 18: 15-17.) and never 
to go to law, together, before the unjust; (1 Cor. 6: 1.) to 
refrain from taking any kind of oath ; ( Matt. 5 : 34-37 ; James 
5: 12.) to resist not him that is evil; (Matt. 5: 38-42.) and 
to abstain from all appearance of evil. (1 Thess. 5: 22.) 

Finally, God has, through his Son, committed his great 
New Testament message to the church, saying, substantially, 
as follows : " Thus it behooved Christ to suffer, and to rise 
from the dead the third day, and that repentance and remis- 
sion of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, 
beginning at Jerusalem." (Luke 25 : 46, 47.) " All power is 
given unto me in heaven, and in earth. Go ye therefore, and 



L. W. TEETER 115 

teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, 
and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, teaching them to ob- 
serve all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, 
I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world." (Matt. 
28: 19, 20.) " Go ye into all the world, and preach the Gos- 
pel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized, shall 
be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned." (Mark 
16: 15, 16.) "Without faith it is impossible to please him; 
for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he 
is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him." (Heb. 11 : 6.) 
"Whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed." (Rom. 
10: 11.) "Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord 
shall be saved. But how shall they call on him in whom 
they have not believed ? And how shall they believe in him of 
whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without 
a preacher ? And how shall they preach except they be sent ? " 
(Rom. 10: 13-15.) Since, then, "faith cometh by hearing, 
and hearing by the word of God," (Rom. 10: 17.) and since 
God in Christ has committed the word of reconciliation to 
the church, it follows, as a logical conclusion, that the church 
is under the greatest obligations to God, to bring the " word of 
reconciliation " to the hearing of the unsaved nations. 

God's commission requires the church to teach the nations 
to observe all things whatsoever his Son commanded the church 
to observe ; because he gave them to his Son, to give them to 
the church, that the church should teach them to the world. 
Accordingly, God's Son said ; " I have not spoken of myself ; 
but the Father which sent me, he gave me commandment, 
what I should say, and what I should speak. And I know 
that his commandment is life everlasting; whatsoever I speak 
therefore, even as the Father said unto me, so I speak." 
(John 12: 49, 50.) 

Next to baptism in his commission, God has, through his 
Son, delivered to the church by institution, the three great or- 
dinances of Feet-washing, Lord's Supper, and Communion, 



116 WHAT THE CHURCH HAS HEARD 

to be observed in the church from time to time; designed to 
cleanse, sanctify, strengthen and reconsecrate the inner man 
of the heart; to impart spiritual life and promote spiritual 
growth. The literal, outward observance of each is signifi- 
cant of a similar inward, spiritual operation. The purpose 
of the feet-washing is not for the cleansing of the feet, but 
imitative, only, of such cleansing. It signifies the inward re- 
cleansing of those who have been previously cleansed through 
baptism in their conversion, each time it is observed. (John 13 : 
12.) It is also a condition to insure the observer of his part- 
nership with Christ. (John 13: 8.) 

While the Lord's supper, — a full evening meal, — a feast of 
love, strengthens the body of the observer, its typical mean- 
ing transports his thoughts forward^ to the evening of this 
world and the second coming of his Lord Jesus Christ; and 
his great marriage supper, of which it is an appropriate por- 
trayal. (Luke 12: 37; Rev. 19: 7-9.) Thus, while the body is 
feasting on the literal supper, the inner man is enjoying a 
spiritual feast, unto the quickening of faith and hope, and 
is made able to realize more vividly, his glorious eternal union 
with his Lord. 

While the partaking of the bread and cup of communion 
(1 Cor. 10: 16.) imparts spiritual life to the observer, (John 
6: 53-58.) and reminds him of the actual crucifixion of his 
Lord, and the divine purpose of it, it is also intended to show 
forth, exhibit, or proclaim, Christ's death, in the world among 
men, until he comes again. (1 Cor. 11: 26.) 

Now, Jesus encourages his disciples in the observance 
of these great ordinances, saying : " If ye know these things, 
happy are ye if ye do them." (John 13: 17.) And he also 
encourages them to faithfully impart them to others, saying; 
" Verily, verily, I say unto you. He that receiveth whomso- 
ever I send receiveth me; and he that receiveth me receiveth 
him that sent me." (John 13: 20.) 

God has also given to the church by inspiration, of James, 



L. W. TEETER 117 

the gracious, consoling ordinance of the Holy Anointing with 
Oil, for his children, in bodily sickness; to be administered 
subject to their call, by the elders of the church; with the as- 
surance of receiving special blessings, as a result. (James 
5:14,15.) 

The concluding part of God's Message is the great Book 
of the Revelation of Jesus Christ; which God gave to him, 
to give to the church. It is, to a great extent, prophetic and 
mysterious. Yet a blessing is promised to him " that readeth 
the words of this prophecy," and to them that keep those things 
which are written therein. The reader of that book may rest 
assured that its contents are facts, in which he is, or will be, 
personally interested, one way or another : because it deals with 
the states and eternal destinies of all men, both of the right- 
eous and of the wicked. 

A most beautiful description is given in this book of the 
marriage of the Lamb, — Christ, and his betrothed wife, 
the church; who hath made herself ready, by her righteous- 
ness, being arrayed in fine linen, clean and white; for the fine 
linen is the righteousness of the saints. (Rev. 19: 7, 8.) 

Likewise a most sublime and graphic account is given, of 
the Holy City, the Heavenly Jerusalem, — the Eternal Home 
of the faithful ; and of the pure river of water of life ; and of 
the tree of life. (Rev. 22: 1, 2.) "These sayings are faithful 
and true : and the Lord God of the holy prophets sent his angel 
to show unto his servants the things which must shortly be 
done." " Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they 
may have a right to the tree of life, and may enter in through 
the gates into the city." 

" He which testifieth these things saith. Surely I come 
quickly. Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus." " The grace of 
our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen." (Rev., Chaps. 
21, 22.) 




J. W. Lear 



Part Two 
What the Church Has Done with the Message 

By J. W. Lear 

The church Is God's purchased possession. The blood of 
his Son paid the price. By the Word and the Spirit she is 
sanctified and equipped for service. Christ is the head of the 
church. The church is his body existing because of him. 
Therefore Christ is still incarnate in the world through the 
church. The doctrines taught by himself in person are to be 
expounded by his espoused. The spirit of compassion exem- 
plified in the Christ is to be exemplified by his body of be- 
lieving members. They are to enroll as ambassadors in 
Christ's stead, beseeching a lost world to be reconciled to God. 
As vicegerents we are to be busy transacting the King's busi- 
ness. 

The message referred to in the former article contains 
the good news of salvation for a sin-cursed world. Universal 
sin, justification by grace through faith, regeneration of the 
soul to a new life in Christ Jesus, adoption into new family 
relations, sanctification by the Word of Truth and Spirit of 
Wisdom to perfect a people for his glory are doctrines from 
God. Those who have been made partakers of the divine na« 
ture are declared by the same message to be witnesses of these 
things. Those who have been forgiven much are constrained 
to love much, and love is the dynamo that furnishes the power 
for service. The Church has written a varied history. Spirit- 
filled and guided she has arisen on the waves of opposition 
to accomplish great things for God. Worldly-minded she 
sank beneath the dignity of the Christian Church and failed 
to reflect the image of the head. 

119 



120 WHAT THE CHURCH HAS DONE 

During the first century the Church was intense in her de- 
sire to proclaim the remarkable message. The advocates 
prayed, fasted and witnessed to promote this revolutionizing 
doctrine. Filled with hope and joy, they were overflowing 
with anxiety that others might be likewise abounding in all 
the fullness of God. 

As might have been expected, Satan launched his heaviest 
artiller}- against this heavenly institution. Human slaughter 
was his delight. However, human blood spilled in behalf of 
the cause these worthies had espoused only proved to be a 
fertilizer which was productive of greater progress. " The 
blood of martyrs became the seed of the church." In a few 
years Judea, Samaria, Asia Elinor and parts of Europe were 
aglow with the light of divine truth. The Devil finding himself 
defeated in his plan to destroy the work of Christianizing the 
world, conceived the idea of taking the Church into his arms. 
By feigning friendship he hoped to get her under his fostering 
care. How well he succeeded history records. This was a 
sad day for religion. When the Church was directed by State 
she lost her influence upon society. Any compromise with 
the Devil means loss. It results finally in hiding the light 
under the bushel and losing the saltness of the salt. The bride 
of Christ has only one guide who can keep her in the path of 
right and present her faultless on that memorable wedding 
day. Christ sent another Paraclete for that purpose, and 
a woeful time is ushered in for both Church and World when 
the Church is led by any other power. 

It is fair to say, however, that through the centuries of 
State rule, Spanish Inquisition and the Dark Ages a few fol- 
lowed the star of promise and kept the fire of consecration 
burning in their hearts. Xow and then persons could be found 
who believed and asserted that we ought to obey God rather 
than men. The Holy Spirit was kindling strong conviction 
in hearts that finally broke into a flame of protest against the 
corruption of the age. For four hundred years men like Wye- 



J. W. LEAR 121 

liffe, Huss, Erasmus, Luther and others equally as bold op- 
posed the authority of popery and started a wave of opposition 
that was irresistible. 

Thus it will be observed that in the beginning o£ our 
activities as a present church organization the religious world 
was in a state of chaos. Traditions of men had found their 
way into church creeds. These were taught to be equally as 
binding as the inspired Word upon the followers of Christ. 
These innovations, as is always the case, became nauseating 
to the more spiritual of the people, and with an open Bible they 
rebelled against the Roman Church. During this — the Refor- 
mation period — different schools were founded, each represent- 
ing what they thought to be the real interpretation of the 
heavenly Father's will. However the majority of these schools 
retained in part some of the objectionable features that icaused 
the religious struggle. 

During this era of heated discussion and unsettled ideas, 
a large number of people separated themselves from all church 
organizations and endeavored to live a Christian life inde- 
pendently. A few of these Separatists, as they were called, 
saw the folly of such a course. They realized the need of an 
external organization to more fully propagate the doctrines of 
Jesus, and successfully carry on the work inaugurated by him- 
self and delegated to his followers — viz., the evangelization 
of the world. 

Accordingly, in 1708, eight of these honest, simple-hearted 
people bonded themselves together after careful meditation, 
prayer and fasting, to start an organization founded upon no 
other creed than the New Testament. The Word and the Holy 
Spirit guided them to the water where they were all baptized 
by trine immersion, the mode authorized by Christ, Matt. 28 : 
19, 20, and practiced by the apostles. Acts 2 : 38. Their great 
desire to unfurl a banner upon which was inscribed : " The 
Gospel is the power of God unto salvation to every one that 
believeth," is the only apology that need be offered for this ac- 



122 WHAT THE CHURCH HAS DONE 

tion. They were fearless in the proclamation of this great Pau- 
line truth. They were zealous in their belief and anxious that 
all men would join them in the propagation of the Gospel as 
understood by themselves, yet they maintained that membership 
in the church of Jesus Christ was to be had on the ground of 
faith, love and obedience, rather than on the material platform of 
compulsion, which many of the reform organizations were 
practicing. For several hundred years prior to this date, al- 
most all thought of evangelization was dropped. Finding or- 
thodox ground upon religious questions was the all-absorbing 
question. In the midst of the babel that then ensued this lit- 
tle band of meek, yet zealous followers of Christ proclaimed 
that the New Testament was a message from heaven embody- 
ing social principles and religious doctrines that should be 
adopted by the church unaltered and unamended. 

The Gospel to these reformers of the Reformation was an 
exceedingly precious document. It was their life and life's 
pleasures. Promotion of lucrative ambitions was of secondary 
importance. Their conversation was about heaven, from 
whence they looked for the Lord Jesus. They carried their re- 
ligion into their business relations. The burning question was 
to exemplify in their lives the highest principles of Chris- 
tianity. Hence, an avocation served only as a means to carry 
forward " the vocation whereunto they were called." 

Missionary enterprise, as applied today, was among this 
people an infant if born at all : nevertheless, these humble fol- 
lowers believed in making disciples as they went. And what 
is more, they did not need to be coaxed by committees, nor 
driven by threatening bombs from the pulpit to accomplish this 
God-given work. The wonderful activity manifested by the 
early church was not an outward show nor gushing senti- 
mentality, but a spontaneous illumination fed by the oxygen of 
love and fire of the Holy Ghost, and kindled by the brands of 
persecution. I dare say the church has not since recorded 



J. W. LEAR 123 

such an average of enthusiasm to propagate truth as these 
worthies maintained. 

The simpHcity and zeal of the Brethren attracted many 
sincere people to their services to learn the gospel story of 
redeeming love. The fact that they allowed the Holy Spirit to 
search out the deep things of God and reveal them unto them- 
selves, and obeyed literally his revelation, brought upon them 
virulent persecution from the scholastics who desired scholar- 
ship and worldly wisdom to form a component part of interpre- 
tation. When the pressure of ecclesiastical war became too 
flagrant for this peace-loving people, they began to emigrate 
to America. To find homes? Yes, but primarily to find a 
refuge from the storm of persecution and more favorable ter- 
ritory to carry into execution the idol of their heart. 

This persecution, viewed from the human angle, would 
seem to have been a hindrance. But not so. It only proved 
a blessing in disguise. Persecution from without always 
proves a blessing. It weeds out the insincere and formal 
worshiper and leaves the true-hearted, loyal worshiper to keep 
the fire burning upon the altar. It is only to be expected that 
every one who came through this furnace of trial, whether 
layman or official, became a preacher of righteousness. 

Persecuted, property confiscated, compelled to leave their 
native land, tossed upon the stormy sea for weeks and landed 
upon the shores of a new and untried country was not suffi- 
cient to lessen their faith nor cool their ardor for their Mas- 
ter's work. With the determination of the average frontiers- 
man coupled with holy zeal, they felled the forest, and with 
the product, built homes to rear families and establish altars, 
(which is more than many so-called Christians do today), also 
schoolhouses to educate their children, which in many instances 
served as places to preach, sing and pray salvation truths in- 
to the hearts of their hearers. Consecration, sacrifice and 
self-denial were their watchwords. It was no uncommon oc- 
currence to see these pioneer preachers riding horseback for 



124 WHAT THE CHURCH HAS DONE 

miles, over mountains, through forests, by new and untried 
roads, fording streams large and small, with food for them- 
selves and beast in the saddlebag, having no other motive 
than to reecho God's voice, and proclaim his message over 
this new domain. I hear someone say that they went at their 
own expense, and thus gave to the people a free Gospel. True, 
but we should also remember that no gift was ever bestowed 
but that it cost some one something to give it. I am sure those 
sturdy laymen of the early church were too much interested 
in this common cause to allow the minister to do all the work 
or make all the sacrifice. Had you been at the home of the 
minister during his absence, you might have beheld his laymen 
brothers helping to clear his land and take a hand in sowing 
and reaping his crop, thus increasing his capital, which meant 
much more to him than a mere support. 

So mightily did the Word of God prevail through the sac- 
rificing efforts of our forefathers that before the close of the 
eighteenth century churches were established in New Jersey, 
Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee 
and Kentucky, and early in the nineteenth the Gospel as under- 
stood by the Brethren was preached in Ohio, Illinois and Mis- 
souri, and the membership had exceeded seventy-five thousand. 
To accomplish this in so short a time from so small a begin- 
ning, and under such trying circumstances, required more real 
sacrifice than our present-day efforts in the foreign fields. One 
thing that aided the cause of the early church was their con- 
sistency. They not only talked and preached the message but 
they lived it among their neighbors. Honesty, integrity and 
uprightness were notable assets. They firmly believed in the 
scriptural injunction: "Let your light so shine before men 
that they may see your good works and be constrained to glor- 
ify your Father which is in heaven." 

About the only plan used to broaden our field of operation 
until near the close of the nineteenth century was the act of 
colonization. Single families would push out into hitherto un- 



I 



J. W. LEAR 125 

tried fields and thus a nucleus would be formed for the teach- 
ing of the simple gospel story. Practically all of the churches 
in the United States established by the Brethren are the 
product of this system of mission work. This too has been ac- 
complished, almost entirely, without any specially arranged 
organization for its promotion, other than the commercial 
advantages that these new countries afforded, and plans and 
propositions offered by land agents and corporations, whose 
main ambition was to sell their products to any one that could 
be induced to buy. With this system it is very little less than 
a miracle to see the results which have accrued therefrom. 
What might have been accomplished by a thorough organ- 
ization inside the body, whose only ambition would have been to 
glorify God by a system conducive to transplanting church 
colonies, is known only by the divine mind. To say the least, 
the church has lost much in failing to arise to her opportu- 
nity of having a systemized effort of home evangelization. 

It is painful to have to state that the church in the last 
half-century has increased numerically but very little. We 
have not nearly kept pace with our colonial fathers in this 
respect. To what does this deficiency owe its origin ? Are we 
less aggressive than they? Is the spirit of sacrifice and self- 
denial less potent in our lives? To my mind the cause is 
chargeable to past and present conditions. What we shall now 
say is not to be taken as a spirit of criticism, for it is by no 
means given as such. It is our purpose to try and demonstrate 
how the message has been hindered, that it might serve as a 
warning to us and the future generations that shall take up the 
work. 

A generation ago the proclamation was very much re- 
tarded by the spirit of seclusion, fear of organization and edu- 
cation. It is possible that the long series of hostilities waged 
against the church, and the knowledge that their polity was 
very unpopular in many places, was partially the cause of their 
seclusiveness. The edge of their boldness had worn away 



126 WHAT THE CHURCH HAS DONE 

and their efforts were exhausted more nearly within the 
bounds of their own famiHes. The cities, crowds and busy 
places were neglected. Hence we are practically unknown 
and woefully misunderstood where our common religion and 
simple methods of living need most to be propagated. Perse- 
cution is no excuse for seclusion. The early disciples went ev- 
erywhere preaching the Word. Paul entered the busy marts 
in his great earnestness to deliver the message that had been 
burned into his soul. This great task was not accomplished, 
however, without great travail upon his part. He felt indebted 
to deliver this heavenly Emancipation Proclamation to as many 
people and nations as in him was the ability. The common 
idea that the message is unpopular was not sufficient ground 
for seclusion. It is ours to sow the seed and water the soil 
at any cost, the increase belongeth to God. " They that sow 
in tears shall reap in joy. He that goeth forth and weepeth, 
bearing seed for sowing, shall doubtless come again with joy, 
bringing his sheaves with him." Psa. 126: 5, 6. 

A lack of organization greatly retarded the progress of the 
church, and has hindered and weakened our possibilities of 
growth. We were slow to recognize that missionary com- 
mittees, general and local, were necessary adjuncts to success- 
ful missionary enterprise. The Sunday school so well begun 
by the early church, which was the only institution at the 
time in which the church as a body could meet to study God's 
Word was looked upon as an unwarranted institution. In 
most all of the churches it was discontinued as a result. We 
do not charge our brethren with malicious intent to retard 
the work of evangelization. Nay, we rather maintain that 
theirs was a sincere fear that these human organizations were 
human creations, unwarranted by the spirit of the Gospel, 
and dangerous appendages to the perfect and divine organ- 
ization, the church. They failed to see at the time, that they 
were methods by which the principles of this glorious institu- 
tion could be more adroitly put into operation. Any method 



J. W. LEAR 127 

that will assist the church in answering the petitions in the 
prayer our Lord taught his disciples, and the one we oft repeat, 
should be accepted and adopted whether time-honored or not. 
The rule of operation should be to accept any method upon 
which the Holy Spirit would set his seal in his effort to carry 
the truth to all the nations of the earth. 

Preparation in order to the accomplishment of a given 
task is often vastly more important than the operation of the 
task. In fact, momentous problems are only accomplished 
by years of painstaking preparation. The lapse of unknown 
time before the creation, beside the four thousand years of 
known time since the creation, was consumed by the Trin- 
ity in preparing, as over against one hundred years in unfolding 
the wonderful plan of redemption. In the time covered by the 
incarnation period of our Lord, the thirty years of preparation 
is put in contrast with the three and one-half years of ac- 
tive ministry. These examples are sufficient to prove that 
a given task can be performed much more expeditiously and ef- 
fectually, if the proper care has been exercised in acquiring the 
efficiency. Our improvised ministry of today, both in number 
and efficiency for service, is, we believe, partially traceable 
to our fear of education, both literary and biblical. Also to the 
often-expressed idea that to especially prepare for the high 
calling of an ambassador was an act to be regarded with grave 
suspicion. Our past and present needs stand as a vindication 
of this assumption. Had we had sufficient men and women, 
trained as evangelists and personal workers, to meet the cry- 
ing need among the churches and elsewhere ; pastors and mis- 
sionaries with a large working knowledge of the Bible to enter 
our cities and foreign ports ; bishops with a large enduement of 
biblical knowledge and spiritual zeal to hold and train the 
saved for service; educational institutions sufficiently sup- 
ported to prepare these workers; and healthy training and 
support upon the part of parents and church to encourage 
our young people to faithfully prepare for the high calling 



128 WHAT THE CHURCH HAS DONE 

of God, he alone would be able to chronicle the result. As 
it is, the different mission boards are calling for workers: 
workers that are willing and competent to enter the open doors 
of opportunity, and the cause is suffering because they are not. 
Who is to blame for this deficiency ? It might be laid by some 
at the threshold of the ministry and missionaries. I trow not. 
Had the church, as a body, shown as much holy zeal, through 
the gifts with which they were supplied, in taking the world 
for Christ, as did the handicapped ministry, we might be fifty 
or one hundred years ahead of our present attainments. 

For a number of years the question of missionary activity 
at our national assemblies was tabled. Wo. were almost 
wholly given over to discussing and deciding what measures 
of church polity were orthodox. Church government and 
scriptural interpretation of the peculiar doctrines and practices 
of the church came in for their full share of discussion. This 
we ought to have done and not have left the other undone. 
Along with our interpretation had we taught such scriptures 
as Matt. 28: 19; Mark 16: 15; 1 Cor. 9: 7-14; Rom. 10: 15, 
in the light of present-day beginnings, many problems ot 
church government would have arranged themselves, and much 
of our internal trouble that has wrought such fearful havoc 
in our ranks might happily have been averted. Every one a 
worker, organized and well-directed, lessens the chances for 
dissention, and reduces to a minimum opportunity to plan 
a scheme of insurrection. It is however, phenomenal, and even 
miraculous when we take a survey of what has been ac- 
complished by our ministerial force. Uneducated as many of 
them were, carrying a free Gospel to the people almost wholly 
at their own expense, often maintaining large families at home, 
we can only account for their success in the fact that these 
holy men had a strong passion for souls, a deep reverence for 
God and a special enduement by the Holy Spirit to lead them 
into the work entrusted to the church. The arm of the church 
has ever been shortened because of her failure to control her 



J. W. LEAR 129 

servants. To have educated, organized and sent forth into 
the world such an army of loyal sons as the Brethren Church 
has produced, to carry out the commission of our Lord, and 
then to have supplied their every need, would have startled the 
Devil and caused much rejoicing in heaven among the angels. 

In the last decade of our activities, the message has been 
lifted from the table and after a careful examination we have 
surely discovered that the breadth of God's plan for us is 
world-wide evangelization. Wherever man is found and in 
whatsoever state, our instructions are to meet his needs with 
the Gospel. The old idea that the apostles on the day of Pen- 
tecost fulfilled the commission, and that we are not responsible 
for the salvation of the heathen abroad, is slowly giving away 
to the missionary cry — On to the rescue. The member that 
now advocates that there is too much to be done at home to 
talk about foreign work is left behind in the dust that is shaken 
from the feet of the marching army of workers. 

We are now eagerly setting our faces toward Europe, 
Asia, Africa and the islands of the sea, to help reclaim these 
lands for Christ. Our meditations, songs and prayers are 
laden with a very serious concern for the unsaved everywhere. 
It is with a great degree of keenness that we feel the sting of 
lost opportunity, and now from every corner of our Fraternity, 
momentum is being gathered for a desperate conflict with 
Satan's forces. For the performance of this great task the 
Spirit is ready to make intercession for us with groanings 
that cannot be uttered. 

The church has already accomplished much, and it is im- 
possible to calculate what might be wrought if it were not 
for the unawakened souls in the church that are applying the 
brakes of indifference on this mountain climb. If every mem- 
ber was spirit-filled and fully consecrated, our efficiency would 
be much greater. Commercialism is clogging the wheels of 
progress. Too many of our members are laying up treasures 



130 WHAT THE CHURCH HAS DONE 

at the wrong place. Thousands will be disappointed on the 
great day of awards. 

The Lord has prospered us marvelously. Money in abun- 
dance we have, but a disposition to give as the Lord has pros- 
pered, many have not. The voice of God through the proph- 
et Malachi needs to be taught to our people until they get the ap- 
plication. Many are hoarding their blessings and through 
selfishness and stolid indifference are carrying on a system 
of wholesale robbery, and that too against him who giveth us 
liberally all things to enjoy. Others are reveling in bodily 
luxuries, wasting our Lord's money while he is calling for 
our service to go for him to the rescue of the millions that 
are dying in sin all about us. 

"While the souls of men are dying 
And the Master calls for you, 
Let none hear you idly saying 
There is nothing I can do." 

The message says : " Whosoever will call upon the name 
of the Lord shall be saved." What a manifestation of divine 
love! But brother, listen to the obligation laid at our doors 
by the rest of the passage ! " How then shall they call upon 
him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they be- 
lieve in him whom they have not heard? and how shall 
they hear without a preacher? and how shall they preach 
except they are sent?" Rom. 10: 13-15. God is willing to 
save all that call, but how much of the sending are we willing 
to do? We, who claim to preach a whole Gospel, and fault 
others for not doing so, ought to be exceedingly zealous in 
carrying the beautiful story to all that we can. Our responsi- 
bility will surely be commensurate with our claims. 

" Hear the voice of the Master proclaiming to all 

Go and work in the harvest today, 
For the fields whitely gleam and the hours quickly fly, 

And the wheat may be lost through delay." 



Chapter Five 
What the Church Stands For: Her Doctrines 




H. C. Early 



Chapter Five 
What the Church Stands For: Her Doctrines 

By H. C. Early 

It cannot be expected of any one to discuss all the doc- 
trines of the Church within the period of one address, or even 
name them with a word of comment. Therefore the doctrines 
peculiar to the Church of the Brethren shall be brought for- 
ward and emphasized at this time, and those doctrines held 
in common by all the Protestant churches shall be passed with 
mere mention. With this understanding I shall proceed. 

First, let it be understood that the Protestant churches, 
for the most part, agree on the large and fundamental doc- 
trines of the New Testament: on the existence of a God, the 
Creator and Upholder of all things; the Inspiration of the 
Holy Scriptures; the Divinity of Jesus; the Incarnation that 
Jesus might become the Saviour of the world; his death in 
which atonement was made for all men; his Resurrection 
from the dead by which he became the Resurrection and the 
Life ; his Ascension to heaven where he serves the children of 
God as their High Priest; his Coming Again the second time, 
as King of kings and Lord of lords, to receive his bride, the 
Lamb's wife, and to take vengeance on them that know not God 
and obey not his Gospel; the Personality of the Holy Ghost; 
his office in Applying and Sanctifying the Word to the heart ; 
Regeneration of heart by which the sinner becomes a child 
of God; Sanctification ; Justification; Christian Experience; 
the Final Judgment and Dispensation of Rewards according 
to the deeds done in the body ; and the triumphant and glori- 
ous accomplishment of God's Final Purpose to be all and in all, 

133 



134 WHAT THE CHURCH STANDS FOR 

— on all these great and precious doctrines, I say, the Prot- 
estant world is practically united. They are the great doctrines 
believed and taught by them all, and the Church of the Breth- 
ren would be understood as believing and teaching them with 
all her heart. For them she contends as of fundamental im- 
portance. She is settled in the conviction that whatever else 
may be held in ever so good faith, it must be in vain if the fore- 
going doctrines, as fundamental doctrines, are not most heartily 
believed and accepted. On this point the Church of the 
Brethren is fully established. 

The Brethren lead in teaching the Authority and the 
Unity and the Sufficiency of the Holy Scriptures. They hold 
that the Bible is an inspired revelation of God to man, that it 
was given with authority and confirmed and sealed by the death 
of the Son of God. It is held that when God speaks it is final, 
that there is no appeal, that he speaks with full understanding, 
as well as authority, and that the only safe ground is to ac- 
cept the Word of God in all good faith and obey it. Also that 
the Scriptures are a unit; they are the expression of truth; 
truth is always in harmony with itself. Want of understanding 
is the fruitful ground of scepticism and infidelity. The Scrip- 
tures being a unit, what is taught by one of the inspired writers 
is taught by them all ; they all stand for the teachings of the 
Master. The repetition of a command by the sacred writers, 
therefore, does not increase its authority. To command a point 
once is sufficient, and the obligations thereby imposed to obey 
are the same as if it had been commanded a dozen times. It 
is held also that the Bible is its own best commentary. One 
passage explains another, and the safest interpretation is to 
decide on the meaning of one passage in the light of all other 
passages that speak on the subject. Again, it is held that the 
New Testament is God's last revelation to the world, and all 
expectation for further, or " new," revelation must end in 
disappointment. The New Testament is a sufficient revelation, 
a perfect law of liberty, and whosoever adds to it will have 



H. C. EARLY 135 

added to him the plagues therein described and whosoever takes 
from it will have taken from him his part in the kingdom of 
God. He has spoken for the last time. 

Now to some of the distinctive doctrines of the Church of 
the Brethren. 

The law of church membership. Faith, repentance, and 
baptism by trine immersion are held as conditions of mem- 
bership and pardon, and as covering the ground of regener- 
ation from the standpoint of the individual. The commission, 
which covers the ground of church membership, embraces 
teaching, faith, repentance, baptism, remission of sins, and sal- 
vation, the teaching to be done, of course, by disciples. Matt. 
28: 19 mentions the teaching and baptism, giving the bap- 
tismal formula. Mark 16: 15, 16 mentions preaching, believing 
and baptism, and states that those who believe and are bap- 
tized are saved. Luke 24 : 47 states that in the execution of the 
commission, repentance and remission of sins should be 
preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jeru- 
salem. Summed up, the teaching of the commission is, from 
the standpoint of those to be brought into the church, faith, 
repentance, baptism, remission of sins and salvation. That 
is, those who believe and have turned from their sins with 
godly sorrow for them, and have been baptized in the name of 
the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, have re- 
mission of sins and salvation. They are in a saved state ; they 
have been born again and taste that God is precious. Such 
are true members of the jchurch, the body of Christ. 

The apostles taught and practiced after this manner in 
their day. Peter, who was God's mouthpiece on the day of 
Pentecost to lay open the saving doctrines of the kingdom of 
heaven, taught repentance and baptism in the name of Jesus 
Christ for the remission of sins and the gift of the Holy Ghost. 
Acts 2 : 38. He taught the same in Acts 3 : 19. And these 
were the first interpretations of the commission after it was 
given. So it continued through the teachings of the apostles, 



136 WHAT THE CHURCH STANDS FOR 

and on through the early centuries of the church. On this 
doctrine the Church of the Brethren is very thoroughly es- 
tablished. 

Prerequisites to baptism. Baptism is conditioned on faith 
and repentance. The order is, first, to be taught, then to be- 
lieve and repent. Commission. It is the believer's baptism. 
The penitent believer in Christ is the proper subject, the only 
proper subject; not infants, nor idiots, nor wilful unbelievers. 
Without evangelical faith in Jesus Christ as the Son of God 
and the Savior of sinners, and in his Word as the power of 
God unto salvation; and without repentance, worked out un- 
der conviction of sin and godly sorrow, the sinner pledging 
himself to be faithful and obedient in all things, baptism is 
no more than a dead form. With true faith and repentance 
baptism becomes an outward sign of an inward work of grace 
which regenerates and saves the soul. 

Trine Immersion. It is held that the New Testament 
teaches Trine Immersion with face-forward action as baptism, 
that it teaches only this mode. The position is based, in part, 
on the following considerations: Jesus named the rite by a 
word that means immersion. All scholars of every age agree 
on this. Endless testimony could be given. Prof. Moses 
Stuart, who was for many years the chief glory of the An- ' 
dover Theological Seminary, says : " Bapto and baptizo mean 
to dip, plunge, or immerse into anything liquid. All lexi- 
cographers and critics of any note are agreed on this." — Mode 
of Baptism, p. 14, his work. Notice the two points affirmed. 
The word means to dip, plunge, or immerse and that all lexi- 
cographers and critics of any note are agreed in this. The 
scholarly John Calvin, the founder of the Presbyterian Church, 
says : " The very word baptize, however, signifies to immerse ; 
and it is certain that immersion was the practice of the an- 
cient church." — Institutes, Vol. 2, p. 491. Presbyterian Board 
of Publication. He gives positive testimony on the meaning of 



H. C. EARLY 137 

the word and declares that immersion was the practice of 
the ancient church. 

If the word "baptizo" had been translated, instead of 
transferred and anglicized, it would have saved much con- 
tention. King James' translators were not allowed to trans- 
late it. The third rule of the fifteen given to guide them in 
the translation said that " the old, ecclesiastical words should 
be kept, not translated." Baptism being an old, ecclesias- 
tical word, the rule forbade its translation. But it is a notable 
fact that in the thirty odd translations made from the second 
century to the early part of the nineteenth, not in a single case 
is the word " baptizo " rendered " pour " or " sprinkle." That's 
an argument, from the standpoint of scholarship, very heavy 
in favor of immersion. 

Baptism is called a " washing," Titus 3:5; Heb. 10 : 22 ; 
"birth," John 3:5; "burial," Rom. 6:4; Col. 2: 12; "plant- 
ing," Rom. 6 : 5. These figures are solid for immersion. Fig- 
ures employed to symbolize things bear likeness to the things 
symbolized. There is absolutely no likeness between these fig- 
ures and " pouring " and " sprinkling." 

In the days of Jesus and the apostles, baptism was admin- 
istered in the water and where there was much water. Matt. 
3: 6; 3: 16; Acts 8: 3S, 39; John 3: 23. Their baptism re- 
quired much water and going into it in order to its adminis- 
tration. Immersion is the only mode of baptism that requires 
these conditions. 

The grammatical construction of the commission, the three 
persons in the Godhead, with their respective offices in the 
salvation of man, teach three actions in baptism. 

The commission, which is accepted as the baptismal 
formula, teaches that baptism is to be administered in (into, 
R. V.) the definite, or particular, name (" the name ") of each 
definite, or particular, person of the Godhead ; i. e., " in the 
name of the Father, and in the name of the Son, and in the 
name of the Holy Ghost." Prof. Latham ki his Handbook of 



138 WHAT THE CHURCH STANDS FOR 

the English Language, page 357, says : " Wherever there is a 
conjunction, there are two subjects, t^'o copulas, and two 
predicates: i. e., two propositions in all their parts." The 
commission rendered according to this rule, would read : Bap- 
tizing them in the name of the Father, and baptizing them in 
the name of the Son, and baptizing them in the name of the 
Holy Ghost. Usually, however, the ellipsis is regarded as be- 
ing sufficiently supplied by placing '' in the name '' before 
" of the Son " and before " of the Holy Ghost,*' making it 
read: Baptizing them in the name of the Father, and in the 
name of the Son, and in the name of the Holy Ghost. This ren- 
dering, according to the rules of grammar, gives three propo- 
sitions and teaches three actions. And it may be confidently 
stated that all similar constructions are accepted by gram- 
marians and linguists as embracing three propositions and 
teaching three actions. 

The Scriptures reveal three persons as constituting the 
Godhead. See Gen. 1 : 26 ; Matt. 3:16:28: 19 : 2 Cor. 13 : 14 ; 
1 John 5:7. It is taught also that these three are one, one 
God, not three Gods. 1 John 5 : 7. The Godhead is an example 
of imit>' in trinit}* and trinit}- in unit\-. It is a tripersonal man- 
ifestation of the one God. 

Probably the clearest example in the Scriptures of the 
tripersonalit.- of the Godhead was given when Jesus was bap- 
tized of John. Matt 3 : 16, 17. Jesus, the second person 
in the Godhead, was baptized, the Holy Ghost, the third person 
in the Godhead, descended as a dove and came upon Jesus, 
while the Father, the first person in the Godhead, spoke from 
heaven, saying, " This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well 
pleased." This case is unmistakable. If It is possible to set- 
tle a proposition, this passage must be accepted as final on the 
tripersonalit}- of the Godhead. 

A few examples will enable us to understand, measurably 
at least, the unit}- of the Three. John, 17th chapter, records 
Jesus' great prayer oflFered up the night before he was crucified. 



H. C. EARLY 139 

He prays repeatedly in the prayer that the disciples might be 
one, even as he and the Father are one. This teaches that 
Christians may be one as the Father and Son are one. Is any 
union among Christians possible to the extent that personality 
is destroyed ? Of course not. Is it possible for them to be one 
in spirit, one in aim, one in life, but not one in person? So 
the unity of the Godhead. The Three are one in spirit, one in 
aim, one in life, but not one in person. The husband and wife 
are one, even one flesh, say the Scriptures, but not one in per- 
son. So the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. 

The essential point is, are the Three one or three in bap- 
tism? On this point the controversy turns. It is necessary 
only to refer to the baptismal formula in order to settle the is- 
sue. The commission distinctively commands baptism in the 
name of each of the Three, and not once in the names of the 
Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Not once in the names (plural) 
of the Three, but in the name (singular), the particular name, 
of each of the Three. No matter in how many other senses 
the Three are one, if they are revealed as three in baptism, 
and not one, the question of the unity of the Godhead is settled 
so far as it relates to baptism. And it is certainly clear that the 
formula reveals them as three, and not one. So that in bap- 
tism they are three, not one. 

The Scriptures teach that the Father, Son, and Holy 
Ghost fill separate offices in the salvation of man. The Father 
is revealed as the supreme and eternal Head and Law-maker; 
the Son as the Law-giver, the Redeemer, the Savior, the Ad- 
vocate ; the Holy Spirit as the Guide into truth, the Comforter, 
the faithful Witness. See 1 Cor. 11: 3, 23; John 7: 16; 14: 
10, 24; Matt. 1 : 21 ; Gal. 1 : 4; 1 John 2:1; Rev. 19: 16; John 
5 : 22 ; Acts 5 : 32 ; John 16 : 7-11. Not only three persons in the 
Godhead, but three distinct offices, each of the Three sustaining 
to man an official relation distinct from the other Two. The 
baptismal formula, which teaches trine action, is based on the 
three persons and the three offices in the Godhead, 



140 WHAT THE CHURCH STANDS FOR 

Face-forward action. That believers are planted in bap- 
tism, or united with Christ, in the likeness of his death, it is 
with forward action. Rom. 6:5. In death Jesus bowed his 
head and gave up the ghost. John 19: 30. The action was 
forward, not backward. Of course, it means more to be planted 
in baptism in the likeness of Jesus' death than the manner of 
action in the body, but must it not include this also? Bowing 
the head is the natural position in death. So in the death of 
" the old man " and the act of putting him off. Even Jesus' 
initial baptism of suffering in the garden, in this highly meta- 
phorical use of the word, the action was face-forward and three 
times. Matt. 26 : 39-44. 

It does not follow that baptism is with backward action, 
because it is a burial. The word *' bury " means concealment, 
or a covering up, without regard to the position of the object 
in the concealment. The burial of a body face-forward is as 
true to the meaning of the word as if it were placed on its 
back, or in any other position. Burial means concealment, 
that only ; it does not determine position. 

Design of baptism. It is taught that baptism is for the re- 
mission of sins, and as an entrance into the church, the kingdom 
of God. John the Baptist taught the baptism of repentance for 
the remission of sins. Mark 1 : 4. Peter taught the same doc- 
trine. Acts 2: 38; 3: 19. It is also taught that by baptism 
believers are brought into Jesus and the church. Rom. 6 : 3, 4 ; 
Gal. 3 : 27 ; 1 Cor. 12 : 13. These passages are very clear in 
meaning. 

Again, baptism is taught as among the first principles of 
the doctrine of Christ. Heb. 6: 1, 2. That is, it is one thing 
among other things of that part of New Testament teaching 
that brings men into a saved state, which assures pardon and 
the hope of eternal life. In this group it stands with faith and 
repentance, and it depends upon them. In other words, it be- 
longs to the birth part of Christian experience, and it is one of 
the conditions of all that the New Birth brings to the penitent ; 



H. C. EARLY 141 

it need not, therefore, be repeated. Remission of sins and the 
baptism of the Holy Ghost are two things that depend on the 
New Birth. No unregenerated sinner can hope for them. 
Therefore baptism is in order to the remission of sins and the 
gift, or baptism, of the Holy Ghost. 

A bit of historical testimony. " Trine immersion was the 
general practice of Christians from the end of the second till 
the close of the twelfth century. The proof of the above state- 
ment is overwhelming." This language occurs in the opening 
of Dr. Cathcart's work, The Baptism of the Ages and of the 
Nations. That trine immersion was the general practice for 
the first twelve centuries and that the old Greek Church, in 
whose language the law of baptism was given, practices trine 
immersion down to the present make a formidable argument. 

The communion service. Feet-washing, the Lord's sup- 
per, and the bread and cup, as instituted by Jesus with the dis- 
ciples on the night of his betrayal, and as practiced by the Apos- 
tles and early church, is sacredly held. It is held that the 
teachings of Jesus and the Apostles make it obligatory upon 
Christians to keep these things. 

The practice is based, in the main, on the following teach- 
ings briefly stated: Matt. 26: 18; Mark 14: 13; and Luke 22: 
8 state that Jesus sent disciples into the city to prepare the 
passover that he might eat it with them. It was prepared and 
made ready according to instructions in " the guest-chamber," 
and " when the hour was come, he sat down, and the twelve 
apostles with him." All things were now ready to enter upon 
the solemn service. 

Being seated at the table with the twelve apostles, Jesus 
arose and washed the disciples' feet and wiped them with a 
towel. John 13: 1-15. The service being new, different both 
in practice and design from all feet-washings before it, Jesus 
told Peter, when he refused to allow him to wash his feet, that 
he did not understand it (Verse 7), but promised that he should 
understand later. This fact shows that it could not have been 



142 WHAT THE CHURCH STANDS FOR 

the common washing for :cleanliness because sandals were 
worn, nor an act of hospitaHty or good works ; for Peter un- 
derstood these fully. It was a practice unknown, and it had 
to be explained that it might be understood. So after the wash- 
ing was over, Jesus, having promised to explain the service, 
said : " Ye call me Master and Lord ; and ye say well ; for so 
I am. If I then, your Lord and Master, have washed your 
feet; ye also ought to wash one another's feet. For I have 
given you an example, that ye should do as I have done to you. 
Verily, verily, I say unto you. The servant is not greater than 
his lord ; neither he that is sent greater than he that sent him. 
If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them." Verses 
13-17. 

In the explanation, a plain command is given to the dis- 
ciples to wash one another's feet. Jesus bases it on the ground 
that he, the Master and Lord, had washed their feet, and also 
that he had given them an example. Jesus washed the disciples' 
feet and gave them an example that they should do as he had 
done unto them. Therefore disciples ought to wash one an- 
other's feet. Then in verse; 17, to add to the strength of the 
command already given, he conditions happiness on the doing 
of these things, (these things; feet-washing, the supper, the 
communion), if they are known. To condition happiness on 
the keeping of a law is the strongest way to command it. 
That's one way that Jesus commands the disciples to wash one 
another's feet. 

" Ought " and " should " are the two important words in 
the command. " Ought " was used as the past tense of the 
verb " owe," when the command was given, and it always de- 
notes an obligation of duty. See Matt. 23 : 23 ; 25 : 27 ; Acts 
5 : 29 ; Eph. 5 : 28. " Should " denotes an obligation of pro- 
priety, expediency, etc.; also obligation in general. — Webster. 
So that whatever might be said, from the standpoint of law, in 
favor of any other practice taught in the New Testament, may 
be said with equal propriety in favor of feet-washing. 



H. C. EARLY 143 

Immediately following the washing of the disciples' feet, 
Jesus ate a meal with them. What the meal was, and its pur- 
pose, are to be understood by what the inspired writers say 
about it and the circumstances that attended it. And that this 
may be seen, it is necessary, first of all, to see what it was not. 
In many cases the easiest way to understand things is first of 
all, to understand what they are not. This is very true in the 
study of the Lord's Supper. 

It was not the Jewish Passover; for it was eaten out of 
time. The passover was to be eaten on the first evening of the 
15th day of the first month of the Jewish year. Ex. 12: 6, 8. 
The Jews counted a day from sunset to sunset, so that their 
days had two evenings, the night being the first part of the 
day. The lamb was killed in the evening of the 14th, from 3 
to 5 o'clock, according to Josephus, — p. 686, Josephus' Com- 
plete Works, — and eaten that night, the night of the 15th, the 
first day of the feast, and the great convocation day, the yearly 
sabbath. The 14th was the Preparation day, spent in ridding 
the houses of leaven and putting things in readiness for the 
seven days' feast to begin in the evening. Jesus ate his meal 
with the disciples on the night of the 14th, the Preparation day, 
just twenty-four hours before the time to observe the Jewish 
passover. Jesus' meal, his trial, his crucifixion, and burial, all 
took place on the Preparation day, his death at 3 o'clock in the 
afternoon, the earliest hour at which the paschal lamb might be 
slain, bringing the passover lamb, the type, and the Lamb of 
God, the antitype, and our passover slain for us, together, not 
only on the same day, but to the hour. 

Matt., Mark and John state that the crucifixion was on the 
Preparation day. Matt. 27: 62; Mark 15: 42; John 19: 14,31, 
42. That locates the meal that Jesus ate with the disciples and 
settles the matter of time definitely, so that there can be no 
mistake about it. And that is an important point in getting at the 
question. Time was as much a factor in the Jewish passover as 
the lamb. Now since it is clear that Jesus ate his meal with the 



144 WHAT THE CHURCH STANDS FOR 

disciples on the Preparation day, just twenty- four hours before 
the regular time for the Jewish passover, it is certain that he 
did not at this time eat the Jewish passover. 

Then what was it ? Let the inspired writers answer. Matt. 
26: 18; Mark 14: 14; Luke 22: 15 call it passover, and Luke 
22 : 20 ; John 13 : 4 call it supper. It was a passover and supper ; 
or, in other words, it was a meal having the elements both of 
a passover and supper. It may have been called passover at 
the time of its institution, because it marked the passing over 
into the fulness of the Gospel. It was a passing from the last 
claims and obligations of the Law over into the full gospel 
plan. In corroboration of this view, mark the fact the meal 
was never called passover by inspired men after the time of its 
institution. It was no passover after that time ; for in the in- 
stitution it lost all the elements of a passover. There was a 
passing over then, but none after that. So it was fitting to 
call it passover then ; not the Jewish passover ; for, as we have 
seen, it was twenty-four hours out of time. 

It was a supper, because it was a meal, a full meal, and 
eaten at the close of the day. Both the meaning of the word 
which the Lord chose to name the meal and the hour of its 
appointment and first observance agree; each confirms the 
other. 

About twenty-six years later Paul icalls the meal then ob- 
served in the church the Lord's supper, 1 Cor. 11: 20, and 
states also that he had so taught it and delivered it to the 
Corinthian church; and still a few years later Peter and Jude 
call it agape, feast of charity. 2 Pet. 2: 13; Jude 12. So 
that after the institution the meal observed by the church in 
connection with the s:ommunion was called the Lord's supper 
and feast of charity by inspired men. And the fitness of the 
name is apparent. 

The example of Jesus and his commanding the supper by 
conditioning happiness upon the kee^mg of it, when known, 
John 13: 17, the practice of the church in the apostolic age, 



H. C. EARLY 146 

1 Cor. 11; 2 Pet. 2: 13; Jude 12, and the practice of the 
church during the early centuries, is sufficient reason that the 
feast of charity should be practiced today. See Luke 12 : 37 ; 
22: 15, 16, 29, 30; Rev. 19: 79. Observe that of all the or- 
dinances set in the church, the supper is the only one strictly 
typical. 

In connection with feet-washing and the Lord's supper, 
immediately after the supper was eaten, Jesus instituted the 
bread and cup. Matt. 26 : 26 says : " And as they were eating, 
Jesus took bread, and blessed it, and brake it." Luke 22: 20 
and 1 Cor. 11:25 state, in almost the same language, that the 
cup was after supper. So it is clear that the Lord's supper 
and the bread and cup are two separate institutions and that 
the bread and cup should be observed right after the Lord's 
supper, the supper pointing forward to the marriage sup- 
per of the Lamb and the bread and icup commemorating the 
death of Jesus. The institutions are different both in char- 
acter and purpose. 

Jesus called the bread his body and the cup the New Tes- 
tament in his blood. Luke 22: 19, 20. Paul explains further 
and states interrogatively that the bread is the communion of 
the body of Christ and the cup the communion of his blood. 
1 Cor. 10 : 16. The bread and cup, called the Communion, are 
regarded as emblems of the broken body and shed blood of the 
Lord. In other words, they are the sacramental body and 
blood of the blessed Redeemer. And therefore, as often as 
they are observed the followers of Jesus do show forth his 
death. This is their distinct purpose. 

The service of Feet-washing, the Lord's Supper and the 
Communion were all instituted by the same teacher, at the same 
time and with about the same authority. He said of them, 
" If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them." 
Isn't that enough? Isn't is a serious matter to separate what 
God placed together? Who would presume to put asunder 
what God hath joined together? Who would separate the 

10 



146 WHAT THE CHURCH STANDS FOR 

communion from the other ordinances with which it was 
given? There is but Httle to be said, from the standpoint of 
command, in favor of the communion that can not be said with 
equal propriety in favor of feet-washing and the Lord's sup- 
per. 

The Christian salutation. A salutation is any form of 
address in which there is an expression of respect and good 
will. Many forms of salutation are in practice by the na- 
tions. Jesus taught that the exchange of the common saluta- 
tion is right, and he makes it the duty of Christians to do the 
same. Matt. 5 : 47 says : " And if ye salute your brethren 
only, what do ye more than others ? do not even the publicans 
the same?" 

But the Christian salutation is a " holy kiss," a " kiss of 
charity." It was commanded by Paul and Peter. Rom. 16: 
16; 1 Cor. 16: 20; 2 Cor. 13: 12; 1 Thess. 5: 26; 1 Pet. 5: 14. 
Paul commanded it to three local churches and Peter com- 
manded it to the saints in general, showing that it was intend- 
ed to be the form of salutation among Christians in all 
lands. That it is a " holy " kiss confines it to the people of 
God and makes it a part of his service; it is sacred, to be sa- 
credly observed. It is infinitely above the mere customary sal- 
utation. 

The foundation and :center of the Christian religion is 
charity, love. How fitting that the form of salutation among 
the disciples should be the kiss of charity, of love, of peace ! 
How inconsistent the practice among those who know not the 
love of God! How ridiculous the kiss among traitors and 
hypocrites ! But how divinely becoming among the children of 
God! So after the command was given, Paul instructs that 
the letter be read to " all the holy brethren." 1 Thess. 5 : 27. 

The Brethren Church has always, from her very begin- 
ning, practiced this form of salutation. It is in common prac- 
tice today. It is held as one of the sacred institutions of the 



H. C. EARLY 147 

Word to be kept by the people of God in all ages and in all 
lands. 

The anointing of the sick. James 5 : 14, 15 says: " Is any 
sick among you ? let him call for the elders of the church ; and 
let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of 
the Lord : And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the 
Lord shall raise him up; and if he have committed sins, they 
shall be forgiven him." 

This law, which authorizes the anointing, teaches that the 
sick " among you " are the proper persons to receive it. Ob- 
serve the two qualifications : First, those that are sick ; second, 
those " among you." " Among you " means those among the 
children of God ; members of the body of Christ. The service, 
therefore, is confined to the church. 

The three promises, based on the condition that the oil 
is applied in the name of the Lord, are : first, " the prayer of 
faith shall save the sick " ; second, " the Lord shall raise him 
up " ; third, " if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven 
him." The promises show the purpose of the service. The first 
two may be interpreted as meaning the same thing. To save 
the sick is to deliver from sickness and its effects. To raise 
up the sick is the same thing. The last one is to give full as- 
surance of the forgiveness of sin. 

The first two show the primary purpose of the anointing. 
It is to deliver from sickness. And it may have a secondary 
meaning, or purpose, as a last preparation for death. Jesus 
said of Mary's anointing him : " She hath anointed my body 
aforehand for the burying." R. V. Mark 14: 8. Why should 
not this be true in the case of men? The force of the third 
promise is seen in viewing the subject from both its primary 
and secondary purposes. 

The anointing service must commend itself to the favor- 
able consideration of every child of God from the standpoint 
of the law that authorizes it, the promises that follow it, its 



148 WHAT THE CHURCH STANDS FOR 

church history, and the blessings that have followed its prac- 
tice. 

The Simple Life. Simplicity of life and honesty of pur- 
pose are jealously maintained. It is held that outward show 
with its attendant lusts and extravagance is incompatible with 
the Spirit of Jesus. In opposition to parading the empty, carnal 
life of the worldly throng whose only aim is to make a " fair 
show " before men, the strongest plea is made to live the sim- 
ple life exemplified by Jesus and taught by the apostles. All 
questionable methods in business are unsparingly condemned. 
Effort to secure wealth for the purpose of hoarding it is held 
to be sinful. On the other hand, it is held that the acquisition 
of means to provide legitimate comforts and to further the 
kingdom of God in the world is every man's duty. 

The Church of the Brethren stands opposed to question- 
able amusement; such as the theater, balls, the dancing hall, 
circuses, etc. The constant aim is to seek after those things 
that add strength, and weight, and dignity to character. 

In keeping with this general principle, the members of 
the church dress plainly, after a manner that easily distinguishes 
them from the world. The ever-changing fashions of the world 
are sharply condemned. Jewelry and gold for ornament are 
discarded. 1 Tim. 2:9, 10; 1 Pet. 3: 3-5, The dress of Chris- 
tians should be " modest . . . with shamefacedness and 
sobriety ; not with braided hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly ar- 
ray," with " even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit." 
The sisters veil their heads in time of prayer and prophesying 
as Paul teaches. 1 Cor. 11: 3-15. 

As a means to the end of maintaining the principle of 
plainness in the church body, a form of dress, known as " The 
Order," is taught. It is based on the presumption that it is 
helpful in maintaining the principle in practical form. And 
observation confirms the presumption. It is taught as a " means 



H. C. EARLY 149 

to an end," not the end itself. It is valuable only as it em- 
phasizes and maintains principle. And since it is difficult, if 
not impossible, to maintain the principle without the help of a 
form, as it is shown in the lives of good-meaning people all 
around us, is it not the part of wisdom to hold on to what has 
proven helpful in maintaining the Word of God ? Amen. 



Chapter Six 
Church PoUty 




/. D. Parker 



Chapter Six 
Church Polity 

By I. D. Parker 

I am deeply impressed with the greatness of this occasion, 
and the importance of the work confronting every speaker on 
the program. However well the true worker may do his part 
in any great work, whether in the physical, intellectual or moral 
world, when that work is done, he usually sees its imperfections 
more clearly than any one else and wishes he could have done 
it better. We are sure it will be so with us in this work. 
While I am interested in every phase of our church life touch- 
ing the past and present, I am more concerned in her future, 
and about the effect the working out of this program will 
have on those who follow us in the years to come. 

If the committee placed me first on the program as a favor, 
I find it one difficult to appreciate just now, however good their 
intentions, but I am content and grateful to have even an hum- 
ble part in such a good work, and hail with gladness the day 
and opportunities that have come to us as a people. 

Now as the audience has not reached the number and 
the enthusiasm that it will later on, and our topic does not con- 
tain as much inspiration as others that will follow, we shall 
greatly appreciate all the help and interest you can give us. 

Turning our thought backward, the history of successes 
and failures of the church for two hundred years presses itself 
upon us. 

Of these, others on the program will likely tell you much, 
but you will permit me to say this in connection with my topic. 

For our successes, whatever they are, we are indebted; 
153 



154 CHURCH POLITY 

1. To God for giving the little band in Germany the spirit 
and courage, amid the many beliefs and unbeliefs of their day, 
to reorganize primitive Christianity in the world. Also for 
his safe guidance of the ship thus far over the troubled sea. 

2. To the sacrifice, loyalty, and faithfulness of the pioneer 
workers. 

3. To the ministers who with their faithful companions and 
mothers in Israel have borne the burden and heat of the day. 
We believe no other body of workers since the Apostles' day 
have done so much gratuitous work for the Master as our min- 
isters. 

4. To the energy and various activities of our young peo- 
ple, as seen in the unfolding of the missionary and educational 
principles planted in the hearts of our people. 

For our failures we can credit no one but ourselves, for 
at our door God has laid opportunities, limited only by our in- 
difference, or want of will and courage to improve. 

Our topic contains two words that should awaken seri- 
ous and thoughtful consideration. Let us first seek the mean- 
ing of these two words. Church and Polity, 

Church. 

The Church is God's people called out from the world, 
united in one faith, having Christ as her head, foundation and 
chief corner stone, and governed by one perfect law — ^the 
Gospel. 

This church was not set up on Pentecost as some teach, or 
on any one day, (See Dan. 2: 44.) but was gradual in its com- 
ing and power among men. 

It had its beginning when God promised Adam that the 
seed of the woman should bruise the serpent's head. This 
promise was renewed to Abraham, Isaag and Jacob. Also to 
Moses, David and the prophets. 

The announcement by the angel to Zacharias in the tem- 
ple, the birth of John the Baptist, and his preaching in the 



I. D. PARKER 155 

wilderness of Judea, mark its New Testament beginning. Mark 
1 : 1 says, " the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ the 
Son of God." Dr. Clark says it is with the utmost propriety 
that Mark begins the gospel dispensation with the preaching of 
John the Baptist. Matthew Henry says, " The Kingdom of 
Christ was set up in the world by the preaching of the ever- 
lasting Gospel." 

Professor Burs, a church historian of note, says, " The 
church was born in Bethabara and baptized on Pentecost ; " 
and with propriety we may add that it was reborn in Germany 
in 1708. 

If any one day, more than another, marks the organization 
of the church, it is that day on which Jesus called the twelve 
unto him, ordained them Apostles and preached his great in- 
stallation sermon recorded in Matthew 10. 

Again: The great cardinal doctrines of salvation were 
given to the disciples before the death of Jesus and not between 
his resurrection and ascension as some assert. 

The Commission, Matt. 28, summed up these doctrines and 
extended them to the end of time, and we must be careful in 
our teaching and practice not to draw any line between the 19th 
and 20th verses of this scripture lest we cut off our claim to 
the promise of Jesus' presence and help. 

If we fail as a people to teach and observe the " all things " 
of the Gospel we not only bar out the presence of Jesus, but we 
call down upon us the punishment due unjust and unfaithful 
stewards of our Lord. 

The Mission and Unity of the Church are interesting 
themes, but cannot be treated in this paper. 

Suffice it to say that some one speaks of the church as a 
coin of divine minting. On one side is a map of the world, 
on the other the image of Christ, and it is the mission of the 
church to transform the world into his image. 

In other words it is to help souls into Christ, and build up 
souls in Christ. 



156 CHURCH POLITY 

Polity. 

Church Polity, as the phrase is generally used now, refers 
only to the form and structure of government, but originally 
it included church policy also, or the method and principles of 
administration and I use it in its larger, rather than in its 
restricted meaning. 

Polity or government in the abstract, is the exercise of 
authority, the administration of law, icontrol, direction, con- 
straint, regulation. 

Church Polity then embraces : 

1. The exercise of authority in the church. 

2. The control of the church over her members. 

3. The direction she gives in carrying on her work. 

4. The liberty to enjoy the good and restraint from evil. 

5. The administration of the laws and rules by which the 
church regulates her intercourse with each individual member, 
and with the world. 

Man is a social being and naturally tends toward the 
formation of society, and wherever individuals are grouped 
together there must be some action in behalf of the group. 
This action is the government — ^the beauty and necessity of 
which we all recognize in the home, in the school, in the na- 
tion, and why not in the church, the crowning glory of all in- 
stitutions — especially since God has ordained it, as seen by 
reference to Isa. 9 : 6 and 1 Cor. 12 : 28. 

As many otherwise good people and prominent lead- 
ers do not see either necessity or beauty in church polity, let us 
pause here a moment. 

Government Necessary. 

God has instituted government in every department of the 
universe. 

1. It is seen in the heavens above and in the earth be- 
neath. On a clear night without the moon's light, and by the 
naked eye, we can see 6,000 stars, and if the earth were not 
in our way, about 25,000. With the aid of the telescope we can 



I. D. PARKER 157 

see millions of them, each having its place, and the moving 
planets making their revolutions in perfect harmony and with- 
out any loss of time, so that astronomers can calculate cen- 
turies ahead as to eclipses, etc. The same is true upon the 
earth. Everything follows the law of life and development, 
decay and death. God gave all these a law and by this law 
they are governed. 

It has been well said that " order is the first law of crea- 
tion," but order could not exist without a governing hand to 
direct all in harmony with the mind that gave them existence. 

2. God gave Adam a law and so long as it was obeyed, 
there was peace and harmony, but when he ceased to be 
governed sorrow and ruin came to him and all his posterity. 

3. It is seen again in the history of Israel, God gave them 
a law to prepare for himself a people ready for the coming 
of his Son. Obedience to this law brought prosperity, dis- 
obedience brought poverty and death. 

4. When God sent his Son into the world to save sinners 
he instituted government among his people by revealing the law 
of righteousness through his Son (not excepting even this 
Son) putting him under obedience to his will. 

Jesus says, John 6 : 38, " I came not to do mine own will 
but the will of him that sent me." 

5. Jesus governed his church directly while here, and 
when he ascended to the Father he sent the Holy Spirit to 
lead into all truth, and inspired holy men to give his life and 
will to the world. In this we find he instituted along with 
apostles, prophets, teachers, miracles, etc., helps and govern- 
ments. See 1 Cor. 12: 28. Again, condition of society re- 
quires government. See 1 Tim. 1 : 8-10. This scripture shows 
that all law has a twofold bearing. The members of society 
whether civil or ecclesiastical may be divided into two classes. 

1. The obedient and law-abiding. 

2. The disobedient and lawless. 

One class in the house of God has the Spirit of Christ, 



158 CHURCH POLITY 

walks after the Spirit, bears the fruit of the Spirit and in all 
things seeks to know and do the Master's will. 

The other is carnally minded, walks after the flesh, having 
the form of godliness but denies the power thereof. 

The one needs duty defined, pointed out, etc., the other re- 
straint from the practice of ungodliness which exercises a 
corrupting influence over others and hides the light of the 
church. 

Beauty of Government. 

We see its beauty in a well regulated mind, body, family, 
school, nation, church. 

An eminent writer says every society without government 
resolves itself into individuals, each following his own way 
and will, to the ruin of himself and others. 

The poet Keats says, " A thing of beauty is a joy forever." 
So a church with good government is a great power in the 
hands of God for the development and perpetuity of both joy 
and beauty. 

To have a Church Polity that God will approve, four 
things must be carefully observed : 

1. The authority exercised must be divine. 

2. It must be exercised in a Christlike spirit. 

3. The work directed must be in harmony with all the 
principles of the Gospel. 

4. The restraint of the church must not be greater nor her 
liberties more extended, than the teachings of Jesus allow. 

In constructing the Polity of the Brethren Church, I be- 
lieve its builders had these principles in mind, and I say with 
regret that some sad experiences have come to us as a church 
that would not have come, had these principles been always 
followed with the same degree of fidelity that characterized the 
little band of followers in Schwarzenau, Germany. 

If we have had success above some others in perpetuating 
primitive Christianity (and I believe we have), it is chiefly due 
to two things : 



I. D. PARKER 159 

New Testament Only Creed. 
1. That our forefathers planted the church in America 
with the Holy Scriptures as their only written creed, and made 
their final appeal to this on all questions of difference. 

In the autobiography of Benjamin Franklin is this state- 
ment : " Michael Wolford complained to me that the Brethren 
were misunderstood, and often misrepresented, and I sug- 
gested to him that it might be well to publish the articles of 
their faith. He said it had ' been proposed, but not agreed to, 
for this reason, when we were drawn together as a society, it 
pleased God to enlighten our minds, so far as to see that some 
doctrines that were esteemed were errors, and some that were 
regarded as errors were truths. From time to time, God af- 
forded us further light, and our principles have been improving 
and our errors diminishing. Now we are not sure that we 
have arrived at the end of this progression and perfection of 
spiritual knowledge. If we should write it down it would be 
hard to get away from, and our descendants would feel more 
or less bound to them, because we had been their advocate.' " 
Franklin's comment was this : " Other sects suppose they are 
in possession of all the truth, but are like a man walking on a 
foggy night. He considers every one on all sides of him in 
the fog, and himself in the light, while of a truth, he is in the 
fog fully as much as they." 

2. That these pioneers organized their work in harmony 
with the New Testament Church Polity. Let me digress 
enough to say that while in some things we are well organized, 
in others we are not, and it is high time for us to build more 
wisely on the foundation laid for us by organizing all our 
forces for more and better work. 

Form of Church Polity. 

The various forms of church polity may be grouped under 
four heads : 

1. Monarchial — that form of government in which the su- 
preme power is vested in one man, the Pope. 



160 CHURCH POLITY 

2. Episcopal — the form in which the power is vested in a 
body of Bishops. 

3. Presbyterial — that form in which the power is vested in 
Presbyters. 

4 Congregational — that form in which each local congre- 
gation stands alone or independent of all others as to govern- 
ment. 

Now in our conception of the subject, New Testament 
church polity is not either of these. 

It cannot be Monarchial, because : 1. That originated long 
after the Apostolic Age. 2. Peter was not in any sense a 
Pope. He was married (See Matt. 8: 14), and he had only 
one vote equal with others in the Jerusalem council. See Acts 
15. 

It is not Episcopal, because: 

1. The apostles were appointed, not as an Episcopacy to be 
perpetuated, but to act for a time as the Holy Ghost direct in 
establishing the church. Neither did they act as such in de- 
ciding the question of circumcision, recorded in Acts 15. 

2. There is no evidence of its existence until the second 
and third century. 

3. Its claims, to keep heresy out of, and preserve the unity 
of the church, are not well founded. It might have this effect 
were all bishops holy and faithful men, but false doctrine and 
divisions come among them also, and when they do, they are all 
the more ruinous. 

It is not Presbyterial, because this form took its vice in the 
reformation under the leadership of John Calvin. He said, 
" Christ gave to the whole congregation the power to excom- 
municate and the Elders must not use the power without the 
consent of the congregation, yet the crowd must not rule lest 
confusion enter." 

The first S:lause, in his statement, and it only is strictly 
correct. 

It is not Congregational, because: 



t D. PARKER i6i 

1. The question of circumcision was decided by the gen- 
eral church and not by one congregation only, and the decision 
was sent to all the churches as decrees to be kept. See Acts 
15 and 16:4. 

2. The Scriptures teach there is one Spirit, one Faith, one 
Body, etc. To preserve this unity in the bond of peace, there 
must be consultation and adjustment of all parts of the body 
to the perfect law governing the body entire. This cannot 
be done when each congregation stands independent of all 
others. 

3. Under this form, ordinances of the Gospel have been 
changed, or set aside entirely. Plain gospel teaching on non- 
conformity to the world and other questions have been disre- 
garded. 

What then is New Testament Church Polity ? We answer, 
It is general — binding all congregations and individual mem- 
bers of Christ's body in one government. It may be called an 
Ecclesiastical Democracy, a government of the people, by the 
people, and for the people. It comprises a ^combination of 
forms : 

1. It is Democratic in the sense that the highest authority 
is vested in the membership. 

2. It is Republican in the sense that the church chooses 
representatives to execute her will. 

3. It is Congregational in local matters, but general on 
all questions of doctrine and matters of a general character. 

The Church of the Brethren has taken this view of Church 
Polity because : 

1. The action of the Apostolic Church, recorded in Acts 
15, and already noted, was plainly of this character. Here 
the question considered was doctrinal. The decision was made 
by the Elders and the whole church and sent to all the churches 
to be kept. 

2. The Apostolic letters sent to churches correcting errors 
in faith and practice show this plainly. 

11 



162 CHURCH POLITY 

3. The common people are the best conservators of truth. 
Left to themselves, they rarely get wrong and rarely become 
divided. 

There are two great causes of corruption in the church, 
Viz., Money and Official Power, and God has wisely set up 
that form of government which places the most effectual 
guard around them. 

Law of Church Polity. 
The law of our Church Polity is the Gospel of Jesus 
Christ, and the by-laws are the church rules. We do well to 
keep their difference always in mind. 

1. God ordained the one. John 16: 13. Man makes the 
other. 

2. One is perfect and unalterable, the other imperfect and 
alterable. 

3. One expresses the mind of God as to absolute truth, 
the other the mind of men as to the method of applying truth. 
More carefully considered, we see : 

1. It is a law of good-will to all men — the Golden Rule in 
the affirmative. Matt. 7: 12. "Whatsoever ye would that 
men should do unto you do ye even so to them." Confucius 
taught this rule only in the negative form. 

2. It is a law of faith. Rom. 3 : 27. " Boasting is ex- 
cluded by the law of faith." 

3. It is a law of helpfulness. Gal. 6:2. " Bear ye one an- 
other's burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ." 

4. It is a law of love. Rom. 13 : 10. " Love worketh no ill 
to his neighbor ; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law." 

5. A perfect law. Rom. 12: 2; James 1: 25. "Whoso 
looketh into the perfect law of liberty and continueth therein, 
he being not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the word that 
man will be blessed in his deed." 

It is perfect in two senses at least. 

1. It answers its design fully, containing enough and no 



I. D. PARKER 163 

more than is needful to bring man into a saved condition, and 
develop within him the highest degree of Christian life. We 
must not therefore add to, nor take from. Rev. 22\ 18, 19; 
Jer. 36. 

2. It teaches the truth of Salvation in a perfect way. 
How? 

( 1 ) By naming in positive terms that which is always right 
or wrong. Gal. 5 : 19, 23. (2) It does not name things that may 
be right or wrong according to circumstances. For these, it 
lays down principles and unfolds the spirit by which the church 
can adapt herself to her environments in all ages of the world. 

As an illustration, we call up the question of secret 
orders. It does not name any of them (and it would have 
been an unmeaning law in that day if it had) but it gives us 
the principles by which the church can and ought to reject 
them. See John 18: 20; Matt. 24: 26; 2 Cor. 6: 14, 18; Matt. 
5 : 34. 

Divine Law deals in the same way with many things that 
affect the spiritual life and growth of the church, such as the 
question of temperance. Christian conversation. Christian ap- 
parel, worldly amusements, etc. And by the right use of prin- 
ciples laid down in the law touching these questions, the church 
may carry forward her work safely and prosperously. 

Rules of Polity. 

Church rules are helpful as methods adopted by the 
church to carry out the teachings of the Gospel, and while 
they will not keep evil-designing persons from evil-doing, and 
worldly conformity, they will keep habitual gamblers, etc., out 
of the church. 

I believe the Church of the Brethren aims to make all her 
rules in harmony with the spirit and meaning of the Scriptures, 
and she cannot be too careful in her work along this line, 
lest she miss her aim and pervert the law of God. 

By the spirit and meaning of the Scriptures we mean 



164 CHURCH POLITY 

their plainly implied and accepted teaching : such as is found in 
the parable of the Virgins, and the story of the Prodigal Son 
and also in the apostolic injunctions touching the question of 
nonconformity to the world. 

Departments of Polity. 

The departments of Church Polity are two : Judiciary and 
Executive. 

The church is fallible and cannot make law. Neither does 
she judge as to whether the law or any part of it is con- 
stitutional and essential or not. It is enough for her to know 
these gospel truths existed in the mind of God, who is perfect 
in all his attributes, and wills only what is needful. 

The Roman Catholic Church claimed infallibility and the 
right to make and change law, but time has proven the claim 
to be false. 

Judicial work to a certain extent is authorized in 1 Cor. 
5 : 12 ; 6 : 2, 5. It comes up in various forms in church life and 
may be classified under four heads : 

1. All cases coming under Matt. 18. 

2. Cases wherein a wrong act is charged but denied by the 
one so charged. 

3. Cases wherein an act is complained of and admitted 
but wrong, therein denied by the one committing the act. 

4. Cases in which differences arise on points of doctrine 
affecting the peace and unity of the church; as in Acts 15. 

There is individual judgment and judgment by the church. 
Sometimes these conflict with reference to the right or wrong 
of some things not directly named in the Gospel. To illustrate : 
A brother goes to a dance and says there is no harm in it. 
The church says there is. Now it is evident that the individual 
judgment must yield to the judgment of the church in such 
cases or all forms of worldly amusements will come into the 
church. 

The Gospel also directs the church to execute the law of 



I. D. PARKER 165 

government and she does this when she carries out the great 
.commission, Matt. 28: 19, 20, and her duties plainly taught 
in Matt. 18; 1 Cor. 5: 13 and other places. 

Church Authority. 

The question of church authority is a great one — too great 
to be discussed minutely at this time and place. It needs spe- 
cial study lest we go beyond our authority or fall short of it. 
If we do either we fail to perpetuate the teachings of the Gos- 
pel, and do greatly hinder the work of salvation, besides we call 
down upon us the censure of our Lord. 

That the church has some authority is not questioned, but 
how much, etc., is to be searched out. While some would give 
her more power than the Gospel allows, by far the greater 
number would minimize and almost nullify it. 

Now what does the Gospel authorize the church to do? 

1. To call men to the ministry and send them into all the 
world with the glad tidings of Salvation. See Matt. 28: 19; 
Acts 13: 2; Rom. 10: 13, 15. 

2. To depose from the ministry when they are unfaithful 
in their calling. This authority is strongly implied in Gal. 
1: 9; and in Gal. 5: 12. 

Authority to call into office implies authority to remove 
from office. 

3. To open the door for the admission of members into the 
church. Acts 2 : 37-39 ; 8 : 37 ; 10 : 47. 

4. To close the door again, or disfellowship members 
when they cease or refuse to render obedience to the Gospel 
and the rules of the church that are in harmony with the plain 
teachings and spirit of the Gospel. See Matt. 18 ; John 20 : 23 ; 
1 Cor. 5: 13; Rev. 2: 14, 15. 

It is generally conceded that the church may disfellowship 
for the violation of " Thus saith the Lord," but many ques- 
tion her right to go further, and so do we. 

Our position is this : The church has no right to make a 



166 CHURCH POLITY 

rule on any subject that when violated does not involve the 
violation of a gospel truth or principle, and then enforce obe- 
dience to that rule under penalty of excommunication. This 
would be placing church rules on a level with the Gospel. 

But we should remember that gospel principles are as 
much the Gospel, as any other part of God's Word and just 
as binding. It therefore follows that so long as church 
rules are in full harmony with the plain and accepted prin- 
ciples of the Gospel they cannot be violated without also violat- 
ing the Gospel. 

To illustrate: To advance the cause of temperance and 
give the church the greater influence for good, Annual Con- 
ference rules that members shall not go into saloons. Now 
if a brother goes and continues to go, even though he does not 
go in to drink, he not only violates the church rule, but the 
Gospel also, directly or indirectly. 

1. He fails to keep his promise to take counsel and hear 
the church according to Matt. 18. 

2. He does not let his light shine as taught in Matt. 
5: 16. 

3. He does not work for peace as instructed in Rom. 14 : 
19. 

4. He causes offense contrary to Rom. 14: 21, and 1 Cor. 
8: 11, 13. 

5. He violates the principle of unity, as given by Jesus, 
John 17: 21 and Paul in Rom. 12: 18. 

6. He violates the principle of submission taught in Heb. 
13: 7, 17 and 1 Pet. 5: 5. 

Now the same may be true when members persist in violat- 
ing methods adopted by the church to carry out gospel teach- 
ing on questions of amusement, worldly conformity in dress, 
etc. 

7. To restore again to their former place in church. Gal. 
6: 1, not only gives authority to restore, but tells us the 
spirit in which it should be done. 



I. D. PARKER 167 

2 Cor. 2:6, S tells us its true design, viz., the forgiveness, 
comfort and salvation of the erring ones. The spirit and de- 
sign of restoring erring members is most beautifully illustrated 
by our Savior in the parable of the lost sheep, Luke 15 : 1-7. 
No marvel that publicans and sinners drew near to hear him. 

8. To keep and perpetuate the ordinances of the Gospel. 
Matt. 28: 20. 

1 Cor. 11:2, teaches us that ordinances and gospel teach- 
ing should not be set aside when abused or thrown into con- 
fusion, but set in order. 

Discipline. 

Another very important topic of Church Polity is Dis- 
cipline, which signifies the training and government of church 
members. 

We put training first because in proportion as members 
are properly trained will they be easily governed. 

The New Testament is our book of discipline, and to it we 
should make our appeal, as did our forefathers on all ques- 
tions of difference. Its specific truths and principles are a 
sufiicient rule of faith and practice without a set creed. 

Our Book of Minutes is far too large, yet it is not a dis- 
cipline, but decisions of Conference on controverted questions 
and methods of applying the teaching of the Gospel. 

Discipline aims at the correction of faults among the 
members, and the training of souls for a pious, devoted and 
useful life — a life of peace and joy forever. 

To this end Jesus gave the church his Gospel, rich in in- 
struction and comfort for all her members in whatever position 
duty may place them. 2 Tim. 3 : 16, 17. 

Now it devolves upon the church to unfold this instruc- 
tion through her ministry and helps in a public and private 
way with the self-denying and loving spirit of Christ, thus in- 
spiring her membership onward and upward to a purer and a 
higher life. With this great incentive before them they will see 
the importance of faithfulness to Christ and the church and 



168 CHURCH POLITY 

will seldom need discipline in the ordinary sense. 

When reproof or correction is needed it should be admin- 
istered with a tender and loving spirit (2 Tim. 4:2) and upon 
the principle of equity : knowing no man after the flesh. 2 Cor. 
5: 16. 

Carefully watching and privately correcting one another's 
faults, with a view to strengthen and save, will accomplish 
much and very often render public discipline unnecessary. 

Individual trespasses should be dealt with according 
to Matt. 18, but trespasses against the church and other vio- 
lations of the Gospel should be adjusted by the public action 
of the church. 1 Tim. 5 : 20. 

All public discipline should be applied through the coun- 
cils of the church and her representatives, and in full harmony 
with the principles of consistency and true brotherly love. 

Many other questions such as church councils, church 
officials, their duties, qualifications and relation to each other 
and the church, are interesting topics of Church Polity, but 
they cannot be considered in this paper. They form a series 
of ten lectures given at a number of our schools. 

In closing, I submit a few deductions and principles that 
ought to be carefully studied and made practical in our church 
life. 

Deductions and Principles. 

1. Church government is a necessity and it works spiritual 
ruin to rebel against it. 

2. It was instituted for the lawless and worldly-minded 
and no one, however weak, need fear it if they walk after the 
Spirit. 

3. God has instituted a general government for his people 
and no one can stand safely, either as individuals or congrega- 
tions, and be independent. 

4. The highest power is in the church, therefore the mem- 
bership should attain to a high standard of Christian life that 
the power may be divinely used. 



I. D. PARKER 169 

5. Church councils should be held in Godly fear, for we 
are all hastening toward the tribunal bar of God. 

6. We must counsel Jesus and the Holy Spirit daily, if we 
would be able to counsel others with profit to them and our- 
selves. 

7. Equity and justice, tempered with mercy, must be fol- 
lowed in discipline, if we would be Godlike. Justice that is 
without mercy is the height of injustice. 

8. The church is the training ground for heaven, let us 
submit to the training joyfully and patiently. 

8. Since God has honored men in committing judgment to 
them, let him be glorified in all cases in which we are called 
upon to exercise judgment. 

10. If the church fails to execute God's laws, it will result 
in the destruction of her spiritual power. 

11. All authority is from God and must not be abused; we 
are stewards only. 

12. If the church would have her members submit to her 
decisions, she must be under the power and wisdom of the 
Holy Spirit in making them. 

13. Every individual member joined the Brotherhood and 
not the congregation merely. Our relationship therefore with 
each other, with the church and with God is divine, and let it 
remain forever unbroken. 



Chapter Seven 
The Higher Spiritual Life of the Church 




Albert Cassel Wieand 






Chapter Seven 
The Higher Spiritual Life of the Church 

By Albert Cassel Wieand 

In the discussion of this topic, it has not been my purpose 
to give a detailed or Hterary treatment ; but to state concisely, 
and as clearly as possible, the main features of the whole sub- 
ject. 

To do this within the space allotted, the treatment must 
necessarily be condensed. It will therefore be necessary for 
those who are vitally interested in this matter to read again 
and again what is said here in outline, and to study the subject 
with the utmost care, — most especially the scriptures relating 
to the subject. Because of the importance of the matter, it 
is not too much to make this appeal. 

In this paper let us consider, then, — 

I. The Essential Nature of the Higher Spiritual 
Life. 

II. The Manifestations of the Higher Spiritual 
Life. 

III. The Culture and Maintenance of the Higher 
Spiritual Life. 

IV. The Church of the Brethren Considered in the 
Light of This Ideal. 

I. The Essential Nature of the Higher Spiritual Life. 

The phrase " Higher Spiritual Life " is one of recent 
origin. It is not a scriptural term. There are other names 
commonly used intended to express much the same meaning, 
such as, — the Spirit-Filled Life, the Consecrated Life, Entire 
Sanctification, etc. Of them all, perhaps " The Spirit-filled 

173 



174 HIGHER SPIRITUAL LIFE 

Life " is more accurate and more nearly scriptural. The Bible 
does not speak of " the Higher Spiritual Life," but of " men 
full of the Holy Ghost," " Filled with the Spirit ; " but mainly 
it speaks only of " Life," or of " The Life in Christ Jesus." 
Of course the reference is to spiritual life. Take your con- 
cordance and look up in the New Testament the words, — 
life, spirit, spiritual, and study them carefully. 

Even a casual study of the Scriptures makes it perfectly 
clear that the reality at the bottom of all these expressions is 
simply this : " Spiritual life " is simply the operations and 
activities of the Spirit of God in our hearts. And " the Higher 
Spiritual Life " is simply that condition of heart and life in 
which the Holy Spirit has continuously and in all things free 
course and unhindered sway. It is the life in which the Spirit is 
never *' quenched " or " grieved " or hindered in any way ; in- 
stead we are ever " minding the things of the Spirit," saying 
a continuous " Yes ! " to his holy pleadings. 

Of course, this involves the continuous denial and renunci- 
ation of the self-life, the " mortifying of the flesh." As Paul 
explains to us in Gal. 5 : 17, " the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, 
and the Spirit against the flesh. And these are contrary the 
one to the other. So that we cannot do what we would." 
One or the other must give way. The Higher Spiritual Life 
is that in which the flesh is continuously and always renounced, 
and in which the heart unceasingly " minds the suggestions of 
the Spirit." In the 6th chapter of Romans, Paul describes it as 
never yielding any part of our lives to sin, but continuously 
and unfailingly yielding ourselves entirely in every part and 
parcel of our being, to the Spirit of God. 

Now, left to ourselves, in our own strength, it is not at all 
possible to do this : it is impossible for any merely human being 
to thus live — always overcoming, ever renouncing, continuously 
mortifying the cravings and hankerings of the flesh; and al- 
ways yielding in fulness and with alacrity to the Spirit's plead- 



ALBERT CASSEL WIEAND 175 

ings, ever clearly discerning and eagerly " minding the things 
of the Spirit." No man can do that. 2 Cor. ch. 2 and 3. 

What happens when he tries in his own strength is graph- 
ically, pathetically, portrayed in the seventh chapter of Ro- 
mans, by one who made a most desperate effort to achieve it. 
But he is bound to record that " When I would do good evil 
is present." " The good I would I do not ; and the evil that I 
would not, that do I practice." He found the law of sin and 
death enslaving him, so that he was utterly unable to live up 
to the moral law as he saw it. 

Now, if we were perfect moral beings in a perfect moral 
world, then could we live ideal moral lives. 

That is moral law, but, the world is full of evil and tempta- 
tion, and we, both by heredity and habit, have moral impotency 
and inclinations towards evil, so strong that our minds are 
blinded by ignorance so that we cannot see and even when our 
minds are enlightened, our wills are helpless to achieve the 
good we see. 

That is the law of sin. Is there then no remedy ? Certain- 
ly not within ourselves. If there is we must be rescued from 
such a plight, by some super-human wisdom and power. 

But that is religion, not morality. God must provide a 
way to save us from our fate. God has provided this way of 
salvation, so that the requirements of the moral law may be 
fulfilled by us, — yet not in our own strength, but by the enabling 
grace and power ministered to us by the Spirit of God. This 
is described to us in the eighth chapter of Romans. And it is 
this eighth chapter of Romans which portrays the Higher 
Spiritual Life to us perhaps more fully than any other single 
passage. 

But why do we speak of the " higher " spiritual life ? as 
though there were also a " lower " spiritual life. By this des- 
ignation it is meant to indicate a contrast between two types of 
Christians, — the one the ordinary type and the other the 
spiritually minded ; the one worldly, the other consecrated ; the 



176 HIGHER SPIRITUAL LIFE 

one always groping and stumbling along, the other victorious 
and fruitful; some have barely received the Holy Spirit and 
give him scarce room enough to keep them alive, the others 
have the fulness of the spirit ; the ones " have life," the others 
" have it abundantly." The Bible does not make this distinction. 
It is barely possible to find traces of it in the New Testament. 
The Bible never contemplated that there should be any but 
those ailed with the Holy Spirit. 

Some people trust the Lord. 

Let me put it another way. Most people when they are 
converted, because of wrong teaching, simply trust God for 
their sins, but do not trust God for other things. The con- 
secrated person, the spirit-filled person, the higher spiritual life 
person, trusts God for everything the same as he trusts God for 
his sins. God does not take away your sins unless you trust 
him to forgive you. He will not keep you from falling unless 
you trust him to keep you from falling. But you cannot trust 
the Lord to take away your sins until you surrender your sins 
to him, neither can you trust the Lord to manage your pocket- 
book until you surrender your pocketbook to him. Lots of 
people are willing to trust their sins to the Lord, but will not 
trust him for their pocketbooks ; lots of people are willing to 
trust the Lord for their sins, but are not willing to trust the 
Lord for their clothes ; for their occupation ; lots of people want 
the Lord to manage their sins, but are not willing to let 
him manage their children. 

Just two things in the higher spiritual life, — TRUST and 
OBEY; surrender and faith, surrender of all. Brethren, have 
you ever taken an inventory of everything that belongs to you, 
— your clothes, your books, your time, your talents, your voice, 
your friends, your houses, your lands, your cattle, your chil- 
dren, your parents, your wishes, your hopes, your fears, — have 
you ever done It, and have you made a quit-claim deed of the 
whole business, without reserve, to the Lord? Have you sur- 
rendered everything that belongs to you, so far as you are con- 



ALBERT CASSEL WIEAND 177 

cemed, over to the Lord ? If you have not done that, I beg of 
you, do it. Get alone with God the first chance you get and 
ask yourself solemnly, " Am I willing from now on to let God 
have control of my life in everything ? " " Am I willing to let 
him manage my time, my occupation, my business? Am I 
willing? WILLING? " And then, when you have surrendered, 
do you believe he will ? Do you believe he will take it ? Are 
you trusting him moment by moment, day by day, and hour by 
hour, that he is taking, and using, and when you get into a 
pinch, can you and will you trust him that he will bring salva- 
tion out of the difficulty ? There are many misconceptions with 
reference to this higher spiritual life. There is a notion extant 
that we may have in this world sinless perfection. There are 
some people who tell us that they are so good that they never 
have a temptation any more, that it is impossible for them 
ever to be tempted to sin, and all sorts of boasting and vaunting 
of that kind, against which the Apostle Paul warns us in say- 
ing, "True love vaunteth not itself, is not even puffed up." 
Not only does it not brag upon itself, but it does not even 
feel big at heart. Their neighbors say that these people are 
about the hardest people in the world to live with, very hard 
neighbors to get along with, — these people who have attained 
unto sinless perfection. It is one of Satan's chiei delusions 
on the spiritual side of things, in the spiritual realm more prac- 
tically. 

There are two extremes, in fact, with reference to the 
spiritual life. On the one side we have a class of people who 
say that they have become so good that temptation has no 
power over them, that it is impossible for them to sin any 
more. These people throw themselves open to every delusion, 
and usually turn out very bad. I am speaking from facts 
which I know. 

On the other extreme, we have a multitude of people, 
members of all churches, vaguely or more clearly clinging 
to the idea that they are necessarily under the bondage and 

12 



178 HIGHER SPIRITUAL LIFE 

power of sin, and that Paul expressed in the 7th chapter of 
Romans the true condition of every child of God when he said, 
" When I would do good, evil is present with me." " Wretched 
man that I am! who shall deliver me out of the body of this 
death ? " They stop there, they do not read on. And where 
Paul says that Jesus Christ does deliver us from that bondage, 
in the 8th :chapter of Romans where he speaks of the glorious 
liberty of the child of God, the spirit of God which has made us 
free from the law of sin and death. 

Someone has said that a Christian is a unique phenomenon, 
you cannot account for him. If you could he would not be a 
Christian. The Christian Hfe is a supernatural life, it is a con- 
tinuous miracle. Paul said, " Thanks be to God, which always 
giveth us the victor}\ Yea, we are more than conquerors 
through him that loved us. I can do all things through him 
that strengtheneth me. My God shall supply your need ac- 
cording to his richess in glory through Christ Jesus. God is 
able to do for us exceedingly abundantly above all that we are 
able to ask or think. God is able to make all grace abound to- 
ward you, that always having all sufficiency in all things ye 
may abound unto every good work." 

It is perfectly clear from the teaching of Scripture that the 
true conception of the spiritual life, of the Christian life, is 
a middle ground between the two extremes. We are not 
bound to be always stumbling and faltering and falling 
and failing. On the other hand, we shall never be delivered in 
this life from the flesh. Paul said, " The flesh lusteth against 
the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh. These are con- 
trary the one to the other ; that ye may not do the things that 
ye would." But we are to mortify the flesh and mind the things 
of the spirit, and live by the spirit, and that frees us from the 
law of sin and death. 

To express it another way, the true conception of the 
Christian life is not a faultless life, but a blameless life. The 
whole distinction is there. It is brought out in two texts : In 



ALBERT CASSEL WIEAND 179 

1 Thess. 5 : 23 Paul speaks of our privilege in this world and in 
this life. This is the will of God, he had said in the verses 
preceding, even your sanctification, — " Now the God of peace 
sanctify you wholly." What is entire sanctification, then ? Go 
on to the next verse, " I pray God your whole spirit and soul 
and body be preserved blameless until the coming of the 
Lord." Up to the coming of the Lord it is your privilege and 
mine to be kept by the power of God blameless in spirit and 
soul and body. Blameless. 

In Jude, the 24th verse, we have the other side presented 
to us. God is able to keep us from falling. That is our privi- 
lege until Jesus comes. Then what ? And to present us fault- 
less, not blameless this time, but faultless, before the presence 
of his glory with exceeding joy. Thank God that the time is 
coming when we shall be faultless, but thank God, too, that the 
time is when we may be blameless before God. 

The Bible, when correctly translated as in the Revised 
Version margin repeatedly, giving the real force of the original 
tenses, speaks of three kinds of salvation, — salvation which is 
past, salvation which is progressively going on, and a salvation 
to come. We were saved from our sins; we are continuously 
being saved from the power of sin, as we were saved in our 
conversion from the guilt of sin ; and Peter speaks about a sal- 
vation ready to be revealed in the last time. Putting it into 
theological rather than biblical terms, the salvation that is 
past is justification ; the present, the being saved, is sanctifica- 
tion, — progressive sanctification, the being saved, and the fu- 
ture salvation is redemption, when we shall be redeemed from 
all the temptations and allurements and limitations of the flesh. 

Let me go back to the terms *' blameless " and " fault- 
less." I received a letter from my nephew yesterday. It was 
a blameless letter, it was not a faultless letter. My nephew 
wrote that letter just the best he could, but there are some 
faults in it, some flaws in it. He did the very best he could, 
therefore he is blameless. He did it out of a heart of love for 



180 HIGHER SPIRITUAL LIFE 

his uncle, and I accepted it without any apologies from him. 
Your little child of two may commit a certain act, and you do 
not punish the child of two for that act. You say, " Oh, well, 
he did not know any better." But your boy of ten does the 
same thing, precisely the same act, and you punish your boy. 
You will not forgive him unless he repents, because besides 
having been guilty of a fault, he is guilty of knowingly doing 
wrong ; he is morally culpable and guilty, as well as in error. 

The First Epistle of John makes this distinction between 
having sin, and doing sin, or committing sin, and that will 
eliminate all these difficult passages in the First Epistle of 
John, if consistently applied. It will harmonize that verse in 
the first chapter where he says, " If we say that we have no 
sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us," with that 
other passage where he says, " He that is born of God cannot 
sin." That is to say, if we live a blameless life we cannot 
commit sin, knowingly do what we know to be wrong. At the 
same time we will come short of the glory of God. 

Brother McCann's way of putting it is, the difference be- 
tween personal righteousness and imputed righteousness. It is 
the same distinction. 

But now, brethren, the one point I wish to make right here 
is, it is our privilege, it is possible for us, nay it is our duty, 
our bounden duty, which if we fail to do we are guilty and must 
repent of. It is within our power by the grace of the spirit 
of God to live up to the light we have. We have never a 
right to excuse ourselves from falling short of what we clearly 
know to be our duty to do. NEVER. That kind of falling 
short must be confessed as sin and repented of and be forgiven. 
But when we are living up to all the light we have, then the 
blood of Jesus Christ atones for all the rest. If we walk 
in the light as he is in the light, the light as we see it in 
Jesus Christ, walk in it, the blood of Jesus Christ, present tense, 
keeps cleansing us from all sin, the rest of it we do not know 
anything about. But just as quick as you and I fall short of 



ALBERT CASSEL WIEAND 181 

what we know to be right, and do not Hve up to the light we 
have, there is a hindrance in the way of the efficacy of the blood 
of Christ keeping us clean and pure in the sight of God. It is 
the Christian's privilege to be victorious continually over sin. 
The spirit of life in Jesus Christ has made us free from the 
law of sin and death. We cannot in our own strength live up 
to the will of God, by the power of the spirit of God we can. 
The spirit of God's business is to give us power to live up to the 
light we have, and he will if we trust him. And if you 
believe that and live it, a hundred times in your life you will 
have an experience up against an impossible duty, but it is a 
duty assigned you of God, you stand still and keep hold on 
God and you see the salvation of God. God is force, and en- 
ables you to do your duty. That is your privilege, that is your 
duty, that is what we mean by the higher spiritual life. 
II. The Manifestations of the Higher Spiritual Life. 

Now if one has this higher spiritual life how will it mani- 
fest itself? How am I to know that I am living it? By 
what tests am I to recognize and prove its existence in myself 
and others? 

The proof is twofold: 1. In Life and Character. 2. In 
Service. If the Holy Spirit has " free course " in us there 
will be continuous victory over evil, triumph over the world, 
the flesh, and the devil. The world's allurements without will 
be overcome, the evil disposition within, whether from heredity 
or habit, will be overcome, and when Satan tempts, there will 
be a way of escape and we s:an bear it. So much on the nega- 
tive side. 

Again if the Holy Spirit has unhindered sway in your life, 
there will be found there the fruits of the Spirit, on the positive 
side, love of God poured out in your heart, joy in the Holy 
Spirit, the peace of God which passeth understanding, the long- 
suffering gentleness and meekness of Christ, faith. By their 
fruits ye shall know them. 

Finally there will be the supply of all our needs. " God is 



182 HIGHER SPIRITUAL LIFE 

able to cause every grace to abound towards us, that we always 
having all sufficiency in everything may abound unto every 
good work." " My God shall supply all your need, accord- 
ing to his riches in glory through Christ Jesus." " I can do all 
things through Christ who strengtheneth me." 

Likewise will the Holy Spirit's unhindered possession and 
operation of heart and life make itself known in service. In 
all our work for the Lord, there will be evident a wisdom, 
courage, purity and peace, not of this world. (Jas. 1: 5-7; 
Acts 4: 13, 29, 31). And there will be power and efficiency in 
service the like of which is not native to the natural man. 
(2 Cor. 3: 5, 6a; 1 Cor. 2: 1-4). In short "every need" 
will be supplied, " every grace " will be made to abound, and 
the servant of God will be made sufficient and able to abound 
in every good work. 

But the life that God has thus cleansed and empowered, 
he will likewise fully guide : " The Lord shall guide thee con- 
tinually and thou shalt be like a watered garden " (Isa. 58: 11). 
The conditions of guidance are concisely and conspicuously 
set forth in Prov. 3: 5 and 6. — (1) "Trust in the Lord with 
all thine heart" — complete trust in God; (2) "And lean not 
to thine own understanding " — complete self-distrust ; (3) "In 
all thy ways acknowledge him." — Give God the right, give God 
the chance, wait for him — wait until you clearly recognize his 
hand ere you act — " in all thy ways know him," as the Hebrew 
says. — And then " He will direct thy paths." These, then, 
are the secrets of guidance, — such complete trust in God, and 
such thorough distrust of self, that one simply will not take one 
step until God's will in the matter is clearly discerned; — and 
then, fullest obedience with eagerness and alacrity. 

But then a very practical question arises, — How am I 
to find out the will of God in the details of my everyday life ? 
By what means does he make it known to me? and by what 
tokens am I to recognize it? How shall I ascertain the will of 
God? There is no question of the Spiritual Life that one is 



ALBERT CASSEL WIEAND 183 

more frequently asked, and seldom does one hear or read a 
lucid and satisfactory answer. 

These means of ascertaining the will of God for our daily 
living are four: First of all the Word of God, and second 
the Spirit of God ; then, our own sanctified common sense and 
spirit-illumined judgment, and finally Providential circum- 
stances. 

Now these four means of knowing the Will of God stand 
in relation to each other as follows : 

(1) The Word of God furnishes us with the universal 
principles for our guidance in every phase of life, and in many 
cases it records their application to the circumstantial details 
of the lives of the men of God, the holy men of old who 
were under the guidance and sway of the Holy Spirit. 

(2) The circumstances, or Providential surroundings, into 
which our lives are cast, are, however, not the same as those in 
which they lived. We live in another age, in another country, 
in another civilization, another society, another station in life, 
another set of circumstances ; and hence while the principles re- 
main the same, still their application will of necessity be dif- 
ferent. 

Still it is much to be perfectly clear and settled, once for 
all, that the eternal principles of holiness change not, and to 
recognize that the ultimatum of these principles is by divine 
authority infallibly given in the Bible and that this Book of God 
is perfect and complete, and full and sufficient for every event 
and emergency of life today and in every age. 

With such a conviction the atmosphere is cleared and we 
are left free to search out diligently and discover these prin- 
ciples and to bend every energy to make the true application of 
them to the peculiar circumstances of our own individual 
lives. 

(3) But the Lord has not left us to ourselves either to 
discover and understand these principles or to make the appli- 
cation of them to our lives. Certainly, if we were left to 



184 HIGHER SPIRITUAL LIFE 

ourselves, we should inevitably blunder; for the natural man 
cannot see nor understand either the principles of righteous- 
ness, or life in its true meaning or perspective. 

And so God has graciously sent forth his Spirit into our 
hearts. And he it is who " guides us into all truth " as we are 
" able to bear it," and he, too, must lead us in seeing the appli- 
cation of this truth to everyday living. The Holy Spirit not 
only leads us to see intellectually, the bearing of it upon our 
lives, but also gives us enabling grace to carry it out practically 
in act and character. 

4. But how does the Holy Spirit operate and speak to us ? 
The common New Testament expression is that he " fills " 
us. He is said to speak in us, to aid our prayers, to guide us 
in judgment and in understanding and thinking. And so it is 
evident that he works in us by controlling and influencing our 
minds. 

And so it comes to pass that our own sanctified judg- 
ment and common sense, our mental powers of observation, 
discernment, thinking, feeling, desiring, longing, aversion, med- 
itation, musing, imagination, etc., are a prime factor in as- 
certaining the will of God as it pertains to our lives. Only, — 
be it ever remembered most emphatically! — not our own 
mental powers in their own strength, unassisted, unguided, 
uninfluenced, unillumined by the Holy Spirit; but these fac- 
ulties of the soul wholly yielded and taken in possession by 
and operated by and dominated by the Spirit of God according 
to the principles of his Word. 

So then, to sum it all up in a single sentence, — The eternal 
principles of Holiness as revealed to men in the Book of God, 
must be applied to, harmonized with, and brought to bear 
upon the unique circumstances of our daily lives, by the Holy 
Spirit of God himself, operating through and controlling, il- 
lumining and enabling the natural powers of the soul. 

Practically, then, if we wish to grow in the ability to dis- 
cern and enjoy the guidance of God we must set ourselves with 



ALBERT CASSEL WIEAND 185 

all diligence, in the first place, to study the Bible to discover 
and understand the eternal and universal principles of right- 
eousness which must control our lives. 

In the second place, we must see to it that the Holy 
Spirit has full sway in our hearts, and that we never grieve 
nor quench nor hinder him in the least, nor shrink back when 
he would lead us on. 

In the third place we should cultivate our minds in all 
their powers and keep them in the finest trim so they may be 
as keen-edged tools ready for any service or work the Holy 
Spirit may wish to put them to, for even he can use us only 
in so far as we are " ready," and then only " as much as in us 
is" (Rom. 1: 15). 

And finally we must do our utmost to look into circum- 
stances and situations, and strive to penetrate to the roots 
of things and learn to recognize " the logic of events." Our 
Lord, you remember, chided the Pharisees for not being able 
to " discern the signs of the times." 

But now, if in your work God thus gives Wisdom and 
Courage, and Purity and Peace ; if he grants Power, and Guid- 
ance, — surely he will with them also vouchsafe the Protec- 
tion of Jehovah. In this secret place of the Most High there 
can no evil befall. " Every man's immortal till his work is 
done." 

In a word, finally, the crowning manifestation of the higher 
spiritual life, the life thus hid with Christ in God, will be 
Achievement. Nothing can thwart the man who is in league 
with Jehovah. There must be fruitfulness. " Commit thy 
way unto the Lord, and he will bring it to pass." The Master 
at the close of his life could say, " Father I have glorified thee 
on earth, I have accomplished the work which thou gavest me 
to do," So if we live this life^ we shall unfailingly accomplish 



186 HIGHER SPIRITUAL LIFE 

the work which the Father gave us to do, and so shall we 
glorify our God upon earth — glorify him in all we do, whether 
in word or deed, whether we eat or drink, or whatsoever we do. 

III. The Maintenance and Culture of the Higher Spiritual Life. 
" But ye beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy 

faith, praying in the Holy Ghost, Keep yourselves in the love 

God/' (Jude 20, 21). 

" As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you. Abide 

ye in my love. If ye keep my commandments ye shall abide in 

my love" (John 15: 9, 10). 

The means of maintaining right relations with God are 

few and simple, — first, Keeping the Heart always right; second. 

Renewing the Mind daily; third, praying without ceasing; 

fourth, faithfully living and working for the Lord. 

1. Getting and Keeping the Heart Right. " Keep thy 

heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life." 
That is our business — to keep our hearts — and then God will 
keep our lives ; but we must keep the heart. " The eyes of 
the Lord run to and fro through the whole earth to show him- 
self strong in the behalf of them whose hearts are perfect to- 
ward him." If we keep our hearts right, then he will " work 
in us to will and to do his good pleasure." 

But what is the right condition of heart? Rom. 12: 1 and 
Matt. 11:25 tell us. It is the attitude of absolute teachable- 
ness, a " living sacrifice," " the baby mind," the attitude of 
utter devotion, entire consecration, absolute surrender and full 
assurance of faith. " The world has yet to see what God can 
do with a man who will never say him nay, but will always 
be at God's disposal." That is what is meant by "a heart 
perfect toward him." " The man after God's own heart " is one 
"who will do all his will " (Acts 13: 22). 

Sometimes we call it having no will of our own. More ac- 
curately it would be stated as always willing the will of God, 
or conforming our will to his Word. It is indicated in the 



ALBERT CASSEL WIEAND 187 

words of Saul of Tarsus, " Lord what wilt thou have me to 
do? " in the words of Elijah, " The Lord God, before whom I 
stand," or in those other words, " whose I am and whom I 
serve," or " Paul, the bond-servant (slave) of Jesus Christ." 

But besides this condition of a surrendered will there fol- 
lows hard upon it a second condition of heart that is just 
as vitally necessary on the positive side as this is on the nega- 
tive side. It is '" the full assurance of faith/' Without faith 
it is impossible to please God, to come unto him, or to obtain 
any blessing. Let him ask in faith. Let not the double-minded 
man who doubts " think that he shall receive anything from the 
Lord." 

"He that helieveth on me, — ^the works that I do shall he 
do also." (See also John 7: 37-39.) "He that believeth on 
me, — as the scripture hath said, from within him shall flow 
rivers of living water." 

" Trust and obey " one might sum it up — or better, obey 
and trust. Or might say true humility and active faith. 

Again, one might say so long as there is anything be- 
tween you and God, the experiences of the higher spiritual life 
are impossible. There must be first perfect reconciliation be- 
fore there can be full and free fellowship with God — just as 
with men. 

Sins of commission and sins of omission must be ?con- 
fessed, forgiven, abandoned. Is there a controversy between 
your soul and God? It must be settled. If there is any guilt, 
any reserve, any doubt, any misgiving, you cannot get on. 
He that covereth his sins shall not prosper. If I regard in- 
iquity in my heart the Lord will not hear my prayer. There 
must be the peace of God, a clear conscience, a pure heart, 
the full assurance of faith. 

Give up and renounce every known sin in your heart and 
life. 

Give up and put away all doubtful things. 

Do everything that is clearly your duty to do. 



188 HIGHER SPIRITUAL LIFE 

Vow to do all the will of God as fast as he shows it 
to you. 

Pray as your prayer Psa. 86: 11; and 119: 33-37. 

2. "Renewing the Mind." — " Be ye transformed by the 
renewing of the mind." " Be ye transformed," that is passive 
voice; we cannot transform ourselves into the new life, some- 
body else does that; but our part is to renew our minds, and 
then, if we do that, we will he transformed, or changed into 
the image and likeness of Jesus " by the Spirit of the Lord " 
from one degree of glory to another, as 2 Cor. 3 : 18 tells us. 
It is he, then, that does the transforming ; and he wishes, yea, 
yearns to transform us all, and more rapidly. But he can work 
only " while we keep beholding as in a mirror the glory of the 
Lord," only while we keep " renewing our minds." 

" Religious Meditation, then, is the second means of Spir- 
itual Life." 

(1) Bible Study is the first and most vital element in 
Religious Meditation. Study more carefully Psa. 119: 9, 11, 
97-104. 

" Blessed is the man * * * who meditates in the Lanv 
of the Lord day and night" — He shall prosper like an irri- 
gated tree. 

All who make a success of the spiritual life are great feed- 
ers on the Word. It is not possible to live right without this 
daily food. It is the greatest of all secrets of spiritual suc- 
cess and spiritual power. " Sanctify them in thy truth, thy 
Word is truth." It is in and by means of the truth that we 
are sanctified by the Holy Spirit. We grow by the Word. 
" If ye continue in my word, * * * ye shall know the truth, 
and the truth shall make you free" See Joshua 1 : 7-9. 

Every day you must have a little quiet time kept sacred 
for meditation upon the Word. All through the day you must 
test your work and solve your problems in the light of his 
Word — " in his law doth he meditate day and night." 

Bible study discovers the general principles or doctrines. 



ALBERT CASSEL WIEAND 189 

Bible meditation connects and applies these principles to the 
circumstances and details of everyday living. Bible study 
lights the lamp, Bible meditation turns its white light upon 
the next step in your pathway. Study searches out the truth, 
meditation considers conduct; study concerns itself with doc- 
trine, meditation with life; study discovers the theory, medi- 
tation reduces it to practice. 

Therefore Bible study is not enough, you must cogitate up- 
on, meditate on, muse, brood over the net results of your 
study until within your heart " while you muse the fire burns," 
while you brood new and nobler conduct is born within your 
soul. 

One might speak of the following methods of Bible 
study : 

1. The Impressionist Method. 

2. The Literary Method. 

3. The Linguistic Method. 

4. The Historic Method. 

5. The Doctrinal (or Theological) Method. 

6. The Practical Method. 

7. The Devotional Method. 

Of these the first is the common method used by ordinary 
people most of the time. The second, third and fourth are 
combined in ordinary exegesis or interpretation. The fifth 
is topical study. The sixth and seventh are what is ordinarily 
meant by " Devotional Bible Study." Unless we have this 
devotional Bible study there is no real " feeding on the Word." 

The climax of Bible study is to think out the application 
of the doctrine or principle to our practical everyday lives, 
then, when we see its bearing on our lives, to conform our wills 
to the Word of God, to choose to do it, "to will and to do," 
and then " to work it out " by actually doing what it says. 

(2) A second Means of Religious Meditation or " Renew- 
ing the Mind" is the ordinary religious services, preaching, pub- 
lic worship, prayer meeting, Sunday school, etc. Settle it here, 



190 HIGHER SPIRITUAL LIFE 

ere you read further, that you can not afford to miss a means 
of grace unless you are providentially detained. But if he 
assigns you a lone and weary task where you are by his will 
deprived of these ordinary means of grace, himself will sup- 
ply extraordinary means of grace and the post of duty will ever 
be the place of blessing. But unless it is his hand that keeps 
you away, your soul will be famished. It is amazing how 
lightly many people, even some who count themselves conse- 
crated, will stay away from the house of God. 

(3) A third great avenue of spiritual refreshing is by 
association with the spiritually minded. Neglect not the as- 
sembling of yourselves together. " Then they that loved the 
Lord spake often together ; and the Lord hearkened and heard 
it, and a book of remembrance was written." *' If two of you 
shall agree on earth as touching anything, it shall be done 
for them of my Father who is in heaven ; for where two or three 
are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst.'* 
(See also Dan. 2: 17, 18; Acts 4: 23, 24; Acts 1: 14; 2: 1.) 
Associate much with the spiritually minded, work with them, 
talk with them of the things of God, pray with them. 

(4) A fourth exceedingly great aid to Religious Medi- 
tation and " Renewing the Mind " is the judicious and con- 
tinued reading of the right kind and quality of religious book. 
Even with all the other helps of Bible study, religious services, 
helpful associations, it is still necessary for the writer of these 
lines to keep up continuously the reading of good devotional 
books. There is seldom a month that I do not read some such 
volume. Books on prayer, books on the Holy Spirit, on mis- 
sions, on surrender, on faith, on obedience, on consecration, 
etc. If you have never read The Christian's Secret of a Happy 
Life, or Quiet Talks on Power, or With Christ in the School of 
Prayer, or The Ministry of Intercession, or The Secret of 
Guidance, or The Inner Chamber and the Inner Life, or 
When Thou Hast Shut Thy Door by G. H. C. MacGregor, 
F. B. Myer's books, George Campbell Morgan's books, An- 



ALBERT CASSEL WIEAND 191 

drew Murray's books, Pastor Otto Stockmayer's book: — 
well, then there is a rich world of pure delight still in store for 
you, and I beseech you, as you love Jesus and as you wish to 
grow in spiritual power, let not a day pass until you send in- 
quiry to Brethren Publishing House for some of them. 

(5) Finally let me entreat you that in the renewing of your 
mind, there be time for simply " waiting upon God." " They 
that wait upon God shall renew their strength." (Isa. 40: 31). 
In your " quiet hour," in " the inner chamber," " when you 
have shut the door," when you are alone with God, just wait, 
there in his presence, gazing up in his face, listening for his 
" still small voice," so still " you dare not move, lest you lose 
the smallest saying meant to catch the ear of love." 

Yes, let there be time for Bible study, for Bible meditation, 
for reading, for conversation, for singing, for prayer; but 
do not fail to win the habit of sometimes simply waiting upon 
God to hear what he shall say. 

Take time to be holy, speak oft with thy God. 

3. Praying without Ceasing. 

The act of prayer is the essence of religion. Prayer is a 
heart to heart talk with God. All inter-communion with God 
is of the nature and essence of prayer. Whenever there is 
a holy hush in the heart, and you wait upon God, hearken 
for his voice, discern the impressions of the still small voice, 
yield the assent of your spirit to " mind the things of the 
Spirit," choose this in your will, willing to pay the price, and 
then claim it of the loving, lavish hand of the good Father 
from whom cometh every good gift: — whenever this happens 
in substance there is true prayer. 

Prayer is not monologue, prayer Is dialogue. It is a double 
process, it is the int er-commnnion of the Spirit of God with 
our spirits. The Spirit moves upon our hearts, and we " sec- 
ond the motion." A cry of the fleshly desires, however intense, 
cast in whatever pious words is not real prayer. Prayer is a dou- 
ble process. The Spirit often cries to us, moves upon us, and we 



192 HIGHER SPIRITUAL LIFE 

do not yield, we quench, we resist him, and so prayer does not 
result ; sometimes our own heart cries out, but not in harmony 
with the Holy Spirit, and again there is no true prayer. True 
prayer must be in the Holy Spirit (See Jude 20; Philpp. 3:3; 
Eph. 6: 18; 2: 18; Rom. 8: 15, 26, 27; John 4: 23, 24). 
Here then, is the true order or program of prayer. 
(1) Our Heavenly Father knoweth all our needs before 
we ask him; (2) the Holy Spirit impresses these needs upon 
our hearts ; (3) We hearken to this voice of the Spirit ; (4) and 
having discerned his will, we choose it at the price; (5) and 
then ask or claim it of the Lord in full assurance of faith. 

Praying, then, thus understood, is the very process of 
becoming unified and filled with the Holy Spirit. It is the 
method of becoming united to the will of God. The first step 
in Christian life is an act of prayer, " Whosoever shall call 
upon the name of the Lord shall be saved." Every step up- 
ward is taken in an act of prayer. There is no growth in 
grace, no enduement of power for service or for overcoming 
excepting as it is appropriated in the act of prayer. 

Hence prayer becomes one of the absolutely essential 
means of maintaining the spiritual life. All spiritually minded 
people are great men of prayer. 

To learn this divine art three things are necessary, — a 
teacher, a textbook and a pupil. You are the pupil, you must 
be desirous and determined at any cost to learn to pray. The 
Bible is the textbook ; in it God has told us how to pray. No- 
body knows the truth and reality of prayer excepting as he is 
familiar with the biblical doctrine of prayer. Have you ever 
undertaken a systematic study of its lessons? 

The Holy Spirit is the only true teacher and disciplina- 
rian of the true art of prayer. Depend upon him, look up to him, 
ask him, wait for him to teach you to pray ; for we know not 
how to pray as we ought ; but the Spirit helpeth our infirmity, 
he maketh intercession for us according to the will of God. 
The following-named books on prayer, among others, will 



ALBERT CASSEL WIEAND 193 

stimulate and help you to learn the Bible doctrine of prayer. 
How to Pray, by Torrey ; With Christ in the School of Prayer, 
and The Ministry of Intercession, by Murray. 

4. And finally it must be said that Work for God, both in 
daily life and in service, is one of the greatest means of grace. 
Blessing comes in the doing (James 1: 25). " If ye keep my 
commandments ye shall abide in my love." The best tonic in 
the world is hard work. We are saved to serve. "I will bless 
thee, and thou shalt be a blessing." Nobody can long remain 
healthy spiritually, nor maintain a high degree of spiritual 
power without working constantly for God. The Christian is 
a fountain, not a cistern or a well. He is a lamp lighted and 
put on a stand to give light to a dark world. 

Try it once : there is nothing that will make you grow so 
fast as working for your Master, with all your might. But 
if you will not work there is no hope for your spiritual growth 
or health; you must degenerate. Find something to do at 
once for the love of Jesus, do it with thy might — whatsoever 
thy hand findeth to do. Indeed, everybody should wade into 
work for Jesus constantly just a little beyond his depth, so 
he must depend constantly on the Lord to save him and give 
him grace and wisdom for it. 

"It is by encountering evil, not by shunning it, that the 
Christian keeps himself pure, and makes highest attainments 
in the divine life. It is by seeking the welfare of others that he 
best promotes his own welfare. It is by counting not his life 
dear, that his life becomes precious. 

A missionary is more likely to live a life of holy thought 
and purpose, while surrounded by heathen idolators to whom he 
proclaims the truth, than is a hermit in a solitary cave, with no 
companionship but books of devotion, and no occupation but 
a selfish seeking for spiritual attainments. Going into the 
homes of the impenitent, that for their good he may be 
brought face to face with those who forget God, is surer to 
make real the great truths of salvation to a preacher or a 

19 



194 HIGHER SPIRITUAL LIFE 

teacher, than sitting down in a room to meditate on its precious- 
ness and comfort himself with its hope. Not by flying from 
evil, but by fighting it, does the Christian keep himself free 
from the stain and the power of evil. By giving of his faith and 
love to others does he gain in faith and love. Spiritual safety 
and spiritual progress are to be found in the thickest of spir- 
itual dangers, and in the surmounting of spiritual obstacles.'* 
— H. C. Trumbull. 

" Jesus was never guarding himself, but always invading 
the lives of others with his holiness." 

The Church of the Brethren in the Light of This Con- 
cept of the Higher Spiritual Life. When the church was 
started, I thank God, the Church of the Brethren was born in a 
prayer meeting and a Bible School. Men and women gathered to 
pray God to lead them into his truth and light, willing to follow 
that word as far as it would take them and wherever it would 
lead them. We have that spiritual life of the higher grade 
and type right there, and all the way down the history. I 
have not time to refer to it. But in the Revolutionary War, 
in the Civil War, all down through the ages, how our Breth- 
ren have taken their stand on what they saw of the truth and 
the light of God, and stood there, no matter what they must 
suffer, believing that God would deliver them. This very day 
in the Conference assembly we took our stand on the question 
of Secret Orders and Labor Unions in the teeth of a very diffi- 
cult situation, suffering and sacrifice and persecution. Why? 
Rather than to violate a principle of God's word. When God 
hath spoken, " There is not to reason why. There is not to 
make reply. There is but to do and die," if need be, because 
God hath spoken. That is what I call the higher spiritual 
life. 

There are many misconceptions of the higher spiritual 
life. The Brethren have always been misunderstood on this 
subject because we do not make much noise about it, we do 
not get excited, we do not make much fuss about it ; but I tell 



ALBERT CASSEL WIEAND 195 

you, the test of the higher spiritual life is, how much sacrifice 
are you willing to make, and how firmly are you willing to 
stand by the right when it costs something to stand by the 
right? The practical demonstration of love and character is 
what tells whether or not a man is spiritual minded. I do 
not care about the shouting and loud professions of faith. I 
always admire those engines that move so smoothly and 
quietly that you can scarcely hear any noise, and yet they run 
a whole factory. These little bit of gasoline engines that 
chuck, chuck, chuck, I haven't much admiration for them. 
I do not blame people for shouting. Let them shout, but that 
is just blowing off steam and wasting it. Let us turn it in- 
to work. Now then, judge by that standard. 

The type of spirituality in the Church of the Brethren 
has ever been the staunch, sterling type that has the "hall- 
mark " of heaven upon it. It is the only type that is worthy 
of commending to intelligent and sober people. Brethren, I 
believe that our church is the most spiritual church in the 
world today. I did not used to believe that. I spent a number 
of years of my life cast out among other people, I found out 
how they live, what they do and what they teach, and I am 
more and more growing in the conviction that the highest 
type and the greatest degree of spirituality, taking people on the 
average, is to be found inside the ranks of the Church of the 
Brethren. I believe that. But brethren, it ought to be very 
much better, far higher than it is. I have no doubt there are 
people in this audience tonight who have something between 
them and their God. It may be a sin of commission, it may be 
some wrong unconfessed and unforgiven, it may be some duty 
undone. You can never live the higher spiritual life in the 
real sense as long as there is something between you and God. 
Is there a controversy between you and God tonight? I beg 
of you get alone with God and get right with God; clean up 
your conscience. 



Chapter Eight 

The Church and the Great Moral Issues of 

CiviUzation — Liberty, Temperance, 

Divorce, Peace, etc. 




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Chapter Eight 

The Church and the Great Moral Issues of Civiliza- 
tion—Liberty, Temperance, Peace, etc. 

By Daniel Hays 

Modern Civilization with all it embraces in culture, in- 
vention, science and art, may be traced to three sources: (1) 
The Classical ; (2) The Hebrew; (3) The Teutonic. 

By the Classical we mean everything in literature, law, 
science and art that ancient Greece and Rome transmitted to 
Modern Europe. 

By the Hebrew we mean Christianity in a general sense, 
— the most important element in modern civilization. 

By the Teutonic we mean the German race who with their 
wonderful capacity for culture, their personal freedom, their 
reverence for womanhood and the sanctity of the home, laid 
the germ of representative government and of Protestant 
Christianity. (See Myer's General History.) 

But the Founder of the Christian religion did not seek for 
a place side by side with any aid to civiHzation. He placed 
his Church on the higher plane, and gave it a higher mission. 
The New Kingdom was to be the " light of the world," and 
" the salt of the earth " ; and whilst it was the design of our 
Lord to lead his people into a higher life and into a saved state, 
it was but natural that society in general would be brought 
under the heavenly culture and beneficent influences of the 
Christian religion. 

When the Church entered upon her mission with the 
Truth in one hand, and love and good will in the other, she 
was confronted by Jewish intolerance and pagan idolatry, and 

199 



200 THE CHURCH AND MORAL ISSUES 

among the educated classes there stood opposed to the Gos- 
pel, the whole system of Grecian philosophy and ethical doc- 
trine of polytheism. In the midst of these seemingly insur- 
mountable difficulties the disciples of Jesus pushed boldly to 
the front, and shrank from no investigation of their cause. 
They fearlessly confronted Jew and Gentile, Greek and Barba- 
rian who with all their knowledge, culture and ancestry, stood 
confounded before them. The opinions and prejudices of gen- 
erations step by step gave way to the simple truth, and sank 
beneath the force of the Spirit-filled messengers of the Gos- 
pel of Jesus Christ. 

The Apostle to the Gentiles entered Macedonia and planted 
a church by the riverside and in a prison whose doors were 
opened by the power of the Lord. He encountered the philos- 
ophers of Greece, and the Athenians and strangers that gath- 
ered around him as Paul stood in the midst of Mars' Hill in 
the city of Athens, heard the first message from the Gospel 
which in a few years revolutionized the whole literature, lan- 
guage and religious thought of Greece. At Ephesus while 
in the school of Tyrannus, all Asia came to the feet of Paul 
and heard the Word of the Lord, and many of them which 
believed and used curious arts brought their books together 
and burned them before all, — " so mightily grew the word of 
God and prevailed." (Acts 19). 

When Christianity appeared before the world as an ag- 
gressive system of religion, Idolatry took alarm for its own 
safety and began to persecute the converts to the new faith. 
But darkness could not withstand the light, and with all the 
opposition and persecution, idolatry was beaten in the strug« 
gle, and Christianity triumphed. But paganism had left its 
mark on Christianity. The Church had felt obliged to make 
concessions to the pagans to mitigate their opposition and 
to facilitate their conversion. Hence minor observances of 
paganism were made a part of the Christian ritual. In this way 
the Church in her mistaken zeal and desire for numbers had 



DANIEL HAYS 201 

soiled her garments, imbibed the spirit of conquest and become 
a persecuting power in certain localities. (407) . 

But let it be recorded to the honor of the Christian re- 
ligion that it was before the power and influence of the Church 
that the gladiatorial combats fell to rise no more. (404). The 
church fathers denounced these combats as absolutely immoral, 
and labored in every way possible to create a public opinion 
against them. The members of their own body who attended 
these spectacles were excommunicated. It is to the Church 
that Civilization owes a lasting debt of gratitude for the sup- 
pression of the inhuman exhibitions of the amphitheater. 
(Ibid). 

In the first centuries of the Christian Era, the only re- 
lation which the Church sustained to the State was a series of 
bloody persecutions designed by the State for the destruction 
of the Church, and by common consent these were the golden 
centuries of Christianity; the period of its greatest purity and 
triumphs. Such was the light which shone out from the 
teachings of the church, from its superior morality, and from 
the flames of its martyrs that it converted the civilized world. 
Here was a new force put into the life of the First Century 
which the philosophers of that day did not discover. They 
tried to deny its presence and its power, and yet it revolu- 
tionized the philosophy, literature and language of Greece 
and Rome, and to complete its triumphs, in turn transformed 
the barbarians that conquered Rome. 

When, however, Christianity in general was recognized 
as the religion of the State, and under the Pope and other ec- 
clesiastical dignitaries (313-590) became a persecuting power, 
the followers of Jesus, those who held to the simple faith of the 
Gospel, were misrepresented, banished, imprisoned and put to 
death. It is one of the greatest miracles in history that God 
so wonderfully preserved a people for his name during this 
long period of unequal struggle of light against darkness — a 
people whose life and teaching were a standing protest against 



202 THE CHURCH AND MORAL ISSUES 

the usurpation, corruption and :cruelty of papal Rome. These 
witnesses for Jesus spread the Truth through the mountains 
and valleys from Asia Minor westward through Europe, and 
held the faith against the combined forces of earth and hell. 
They maintained that the kingdom which Christ set up on 
earth is composed of holy persons, and ought to be entirely 
free not only from ungodly persons, but also from all agen- 
cies of man's device as an aid to Christianity itself. (See 
Religious Encyclopedia). 

This long-continued persecution of a people whose high- 
est crime was patient endurance of violence and outrage, at 
last awakened the public conscience to see the great enormity 
and wickedness of persecution in the abstract, and the moral 
unfitness of temporal punishment as a means of religious con- 
troversy. This was the dawn of a better day, and when at 
last the sun of religious liberty arose, this was the greatest 
achievement of Christianity — the greatest boon conferred by a 
suffering Church on Civilization. 

The Renaissance. — ^With the renaissance of learning 
(1294-1517), came the revival of religion. Scholasticism, 
which was the reproduction of ancient philosophy under the 
control of ecclesiastical discipline, steadily gave way before 
the New Learning. In Germany as in England the Renaissance 
was cultivated in a religious spirit. At Basel, Switzerland, 
Erasmus, in 1516, published his edition of the Greek Testament. 
This work was followed by editions of Cyprian and Jerome, 
and translations from Origen, Athanasius and Chrysostom. 
This opened the way to a better understanding of the funda- 
mental truths of Christianity — a clearer knowledge of the 
Bible and Christian Antiquity. (See Fisher's History of the 
Christian Church). 

After John WycHf had given the English Bible to his 
countrymen (1384) ; and John Huss of Bohemia died at the 
stake, because he had based his reform of the church upon 
conscience and Scripture (1415) ; after Martin Luther had 



DANIEL HAYS 203 

kindled the fires of the Reformation (1517) and the reformers 
under him and after him had differed so much among them- 
selves as to persecute each other and those whom they sought 
to reform, — after these wonderful energies had arisen with 
increased light and wider experiences and had prepared the 
way for men to think calmly and to act deliberately, in the year 
1708, at Schwarzenau, Germany, a remnant of persecuted men 
and women of God organized a system of religious truth at 
once simple, profound and comprehensive, and gave to the 
world the Revival of Primitive Christianity. 

When Grecian Philosophy gave its ethical culture to 
the world, it taught in part man's duty to man, but it ignored 
his duty to himself and to his God. When Rome gave 
laws to the world, she held the nations under the iron 
heel of military power. When the schoolmen revived the 
peripatetic philosophy and attempted to reconcile revelation 
and reason, faith and philosophy, it was made the tool of ec- 
clesiastical discipline. And when the Reformation had reached 
a period in combating the corruptions of Rome, and in turn be- 
came intolerant even unto mortal hatred by stress of law and 
force of arms ; the revival of Primitive Christianity gave to the 
world, in 1708, the New Testament as the standard, socially, 
morally and religiously — a pure life in a faithful, loving service 
to God. Thus the Reform Movement reached a climax in the 
revival of Primitive Christianity in 1708. God in his own time 
and way was going to plant a great and free nation in America 
and he chose a people from among the Germans to carry the 
standard of light and truth to the New World. They were 
by nature and training fitted to stamp the conscience and mor- 
als of society, — a mighty force in the development of Amer- 
ican Civilization. It was not by accident that the Brethren 
at the invitation of Wm. Penn came to America, and settled at 
Germantown near Philadelphia in 1719-29. It was here that 
they gathered union, strength and character for the wider 



204 THE CHURCH AND MORAL ISSUES 

field which opened before them, and the wonderful activities 
which followed. It was here in the year 1754 during the ed- 
ucational struggle in which the English planned a system of 
schools to take from the German his language and his religion, 
and under the leadership of Christopher Sower, the Germans 
nobly won, — ^proving that the great ignorance imputed to the 
Pennsylvania Germans by the writers of history, belongs more 
justly to the writers themselves. (See Educational Struggle 
in Colonial Pennsylvania, by Bro. M. G. Brumbaugh.) It was 
here in 1777-8 that the struggle for religious liberty occurred 
between Elder Christopher Sower, as the leader of the Peace 
people, and the colonial authorities, which resulted in seeming 
disaster to Brother Sower and the cause of Peace. But God 
overruled it all, and, in the adoption of the Constitution in 
1789, it ended in a triumphant victory for suffering human- 
ity — " absolute religious liberty," and the entire separation of 
Church and State. This was the greatest triumph for the 
cause of civilization in history, and the Brethren under the 
providence of God took an active part through much suffering 
and persecution in securing full civil and religious liberty for 
the American people. 

But this great boon to suffering humanity did not come 
without a long, patient, earnest struggle for the right. Hol- 
land was the first home of religious liberty and (See Religious 
Encyclopedia) gave protection to the Puritans in 1608. In 
1644, John Milton, the apostle of toleration in England, wrote 
his '' Defense of Liberty/' " perhaps the noblest pamphlet in our 
language." In 1636 Roger Williams established a colony in 
Rhode Island where full religious liberty was made a part of 
the fundamental law. In 1649 Maryland passed the Toleration 
Act, and Wm. Penn in 1682, established a colony in Pennsyl- 
vania and made it a refuge for the oppressed in all matters 
of religion. And when the Representatives of the thirteen 
Colonies in 1787 met in Philadelphia, the center of colonial 
wealth, culture and education, with the history of the struggle 



DANIEL HAYS 205 

for religious liberty before them and the efforts made to es- 
tablish religious liberty around them, these great men wisely 
and nobly framed for the Government of the United States 
what may be known to succeeding generations as the Great 
Charter of American Liberty. 

The Brethren came out of the Revolution (1775-91) a 
united and a free people — free in the possession and enjoy- 
ment of their language, their religion and their rights, and in 
the movement south and west it was a tide of men and wom- 
en with a high purpose in establishing the purity of religion, 
and safety for the morals of the family and the home. Had 
they remained at Germantown with all its advantages it would 
have resulted in a community of interests and spiritual stag- 
nation. God had much land for them to possess in the valleys 
south and upon the plains of the great West, and he meant 
that the great principles which the church held should be 
proclaimed from every hilltop and valley of this great country. 

Let us pause and consider the great moral issues that af- 
fect our civilization: — peace, temperance liberty, simplicity 
of life, purity, and sacredness of the home and the marriage 
relation. 

Separation of Church and State, civil and religious liberty, 
had been secured at the close of the War of Independence, 
and the adoption of the Constitution, ( 1791 ) . So complete was 
religious liberty enjoyed that the Brethren holding anti-slavery 
views were permitted to live unmolested in States where slav- 
ery was protected by law. In Pennsylvania where the manu- 
facture, sale and use of ardent spirits was permitted by the 
government, and where the imposing of a tax in its manu- 
facture led to the Whiskey Insurrection (1794), the church 
asserted her doctrine, clear and unmistakable, against the man- 
ufacture, sale and use of intoxicating beverages, and with- 
drew Christian fellowship from every violator of her tem- 
perance principles. The church has stood and still stands 
in the foreground with a clean record, and an increasing ear- 



206 THE CHURCH AND MORAL ISSUES 

nestness in maintaining her high standard, and carrying it on 
to victor}^ 

In Maryland, Virginia, Tennessee and other States south, 
the church, though opposed to slavery, lived in friendly rela- 
tion to government and the people, as a rule, working its way 
quietly and peacefully, and when the Civil War, (1861-5) 
came on, the church stood for peace, and union, and the gov- 
ernment was made willing to accede to our peace principles 
in time of war, because we had been a considerate and a con- 
sistent peace people in time of peace. The Brethren's influence 
against slavery was not the result of agitation, but the power of 
example as an evidence that better results follow a free labor 
system than slaver>\ The attitude and teaching of the church 
prevailed and the institution of slavery was abolished Jan- 
uary 1, 1862. 

But there is an evil equally great holding men and wom- 
en with the grip of a giant in chains worse than slavery, and 
the attitude and teaching of the church on the Divorce evil 
has ever been for the perpetuity and sacredness of the marriage 
relation; and may we not see a vindication of the honor and 
sanctity of the home by an awakening of the public con- 
science and the morals of society? 

The Brethren inherited from their German ancestry a 
" strong and hardy nature, inured to toil and weariness, with 
sentiments made up of truth, uprightness, attachment to duty, 
observance of order. If the storm rages, and the wind blusters, 
if stiff and blue with cold, once in his cottage, beside his fire 
of turf, and with his scanty fare, what matters it? Another 
kingdom opens to reward him — the kingdom of inward con- 
tentment: his wife loves him and is faithful; his children 
round his hearth spell out the old family Bible; he is the pro- 
tector, the benefactor of his home, honored by others, hon- 
ored by himself; and if in need of assistance, he knows that 
his neighbors will stand faithfully and bravely by his side." 
(From Taine on the Renaissance) . 



DANIEL HAYS 207 

With the life blood of such an ancestry, with a religion 
for the family and the church that is true to the Bible, the 
Brethren regard the purity of the home and the sacredness of 
the marriage relation the greatest problem of our civilization. 
Purity in the home will insure purity in society. Civilization 
never rises higher than the home life, and never sinks below it. 
It takes men and women true to each other and the home life 
to make a community with an uplift to a nation that stands 
for righteousness. 

A home to be happy and prosperous must have God in 
it, and the church holds that to maintain the permanence of 
the institution of marriage is the way to maintain the purity of 
society. The disclosures made in the courts of justice show a 
moral laxity which is a disgrace to our boasted civilization. 
Thank God, the church holds up a higher standard than 
this — one based on the preservation and integrity of the family 
institution as God originally made it. When the question of 
immorality in the church arose, the Apostles' rule was that 
while it was no part of the church's duty to judge those that 
are without, the church must purge itself of the member 
who was leading an impure life. " What the world needs is 
the bright and consistent example of all Christian people, and 
to present an unbroken front against the flood of divorces 
which threatens to engulf our social civilization." 

Civilization to be morally right must have a standard, and 
that standard must be seen. All light, whether physical, moral 
or spiritual, has its origin in God. If the church is the light 
of the world, the church must be in the fore on every issue 
that stands for the upHft of the race. 

Secrecy stands in direct opposition to the nature and mis- 
sion of light. " In secret have I said nothing," said the great 
Teacher. If a thing be a good thing, why conceal it? If it be 
a bad thing, it is wrong to conceal it. In the lodge a man swears 
to a thing he does not understand. In the church he is taught 
in everything that is held in the church. The church takes 



THE CHURCH AND MORAL ISSUES 

care of her poor and engages in other charitable work as a 
reHgious duty. Charity in the lodge is measured by a man's 
ability to pay his dues. A pauper has no chance in it. The 
church leads in the light with an uplift to all. No greater 
calamity could befall our world than the shutting off of light, 
and as it is with the natural so with the spiritual. Then why 
should we look upon moral darkness with indifference ? How 
blessed the light that ever shines, free as the sun and contin- 
uous as a cloudless day. The door of the church stands open 
wide, and in her highest court there is free and full discus- 
sion of every issue that affects her purity and integrity. What 
influence the church has had, and may continue to have amid 
the apparent increasing love and growth of secret orders, 
eternity alone can tell. But this know, that the church 
does show the way, and points ever upward and forward to 
liberty, light and truth. 

Separation from the World. — The church had its origin 
in the recognition of the fact that separation from the world 
was a principle equally as strong and fundamental as the 
separation of Church and State. " Come out from among 
them, and be ye separate, and touch not the unclean thing, and 
I will receive you" (2 Cor. 6: 17), stands with equal force 
with, "My Kingdom is not of this world," (John 18: 36). 
There has been a glory about the church in its standing for 
separation from the world, and in the means for maintaining 
that separation. As a religious question, the church has drawn 
a line on worldly costume in order to maintain the principle 
of plain dressing. The church leads in the dress reform move- 
ment, because she has a fixed standard that is both scriptural 
and reasonable. Others may fail to reach it, who admire the 
standard, and even follow it afar off, yet this does not in- 
validate the standard itself, or the world's need of it. It is not 
a question of a loss, or a failure to gain persons who desire to 
indulge in the " lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the 



DANIEL HAYS 209 

pride of life." Such a loss is a real gain to the church. The 
strength of a church cannot be estimated merely by numbers. 

As a moral question, we speak of dress in its relation to 
health, modesty and purity. A certain author (Stuart) speak- 
ing of the "pale faces and shrunken forms decked in the 
fashions of the day," says in part it is a pleasure to meet a 
woman strong in health, and strong in her dress. When asked 
what has become of our healthy women, a doctor replied that 
Madam Fashion has ruined the lives and health of our women. 
" She has stolen the rose from the cheek, the sparkle from her 
eye, the plumpness from her form. I pray God that the day 
may soon come when the sensible women of this country will 
rise up and put down all those forms of dress that are not con- 
ducive to health and modesty, and will dare to have the courage 
to draw the line where modesty stops and immodesty begins. A 
strong woman makes demands upon the opposite sex. A man 
has drawn a line for women — he has made demands upon 
her character, and whenever a woman crosses the line that 
man has drawn for her, she is picked up on the cold iron 
shovel of ostracism and thrown out into the cold, heartless 
world, the devil puts his foot on her and she never rises. On 
the other hand, a young man with his thousands back of him, 
can wallow in the slums, debauch himself in the saloon, and 
the unnamable haunts of sin, and then in his elegant costume, 
with the breath of the richest perfume about his clothing, is 
received in some of the homes of this country, and an escort 
for some of the brightest and purest young women. And this 
in the light of our boasted civilization! Thank God, Chris- 
tianity has a higher standard than this. May the day speedily 
come when our young women will demand of the young man 
that he shall be as clean in his life and true to his character, as 
he demands that she shall be." It is an insult to our high 
conceptions of the true, the beautiful, the good in life and 
character, that persons of either sex, who have set common 
decency and the law of God at defiance, should be received in 

14 



210 THE CHURCH AND MORAL ISSUES 

society as cordially as if their offense was trivial. For the 
penitent under scriptural conditions, there should be, in the 
proper way, always forgiveness and restoration. But there 
should be no compromise with sin, as the continued and per- 
sistent teaching and practice of the church in maintaining the 
purity of life and the sacredness of the marriage relation is 
the only hope of civilization and a lost world. A licentious man 
at the head of a home is a monster, and when we consider 
woman's sphere and woman's influence and what Christianity 
has done for her, an unchaste, ungodly woman in Christian 
America is the greatest monstrosity that our civilization pro- 
duces. 

In conclusion, be it said in all meekness and humility, that 
the church in her separation from the world, and the high 
standard she has raised for pure morals and a pure life in the 
practice of primitive Christianity, has led up to all that is good 
and desirable in modern civilization. 

We may not be able to see the force of a work so apparent- 
ly helpless against such overwhelming opposition, but God was 
in it all, and it was his kind, overruling hand which gave us the 
blessings of peace and liberty under our Government and with 
the people. We accord to others the same liberties we our- 
selves enjoy. It is in truth the way we reached the end for 
which the church has ever prayed, " to live and lead a peace- 
able and a quiet life in all godliness and honesty." A good test 
of the moral and intellectual culture of a nation is the high 
regard it has for the Bible and for the people who live a pure 
life in obedience to its holy precepts. A cultured man is one 
who loves the truth, and is always on the lookout for it, and 
when he has found the pearl of great price, though wise and 
keen in the use of the processes which test the validity of truth, 
still he offers good cheer to others, and is still more eager to 
give to all who are seeking the light, the opportunity to ac- 
quire a goodly pearl of the Master's own choosing. 

This Christian culture in the spirit of meekness the church 



DANIEL HAYS 211 

maintained on the high plain of Gospel truth. She made no 
compromise with error. It was because she faithfully kept a 
clean record that she was able to point out the way of peace, 
liberty and temperance, and to unfurl the banner of Arbitration 
to the breeze of love and good will that is sweeping the na- 
tions. The establishment of the Hague Court is a fitting climax 
to the influence of Christianity over modern civilization. 

As a few notes of the musical scale that made but little im- 
pression upon the ear at first, after the lapse of time, these 
few artless sounds were taken up by many voices and con- 
verted into chords of exquisite harmony, — so the performance 
of the work assigned us as witnesses for Jesus, may be im- 
perfect with but little in it to attract the attention of the world, 
but if by faith and love we continue to sound out the notes of 
truth, by and by many will join the strain in God's own way, 
till it swells into universal harmony. 



Chapter Nine 
The Work of Women in the Church 




n 5. Moherman 



Part One 
The Work of Women' in the Church 

By T. S. Moherman 

Every woman Is a daughter of the almighty God, as every 
man is his son. Each has the divine impress, and for each the 
destiny is the same. Though their labors vary, yet in their in- 
tellectual, social and moral advancement they become one in the 
solidarity of humanity. It is not a question of woman's rights, 
or of men's rights, but of human rights. Men and women rise, 
or fall together. History has oft proven that no nation can 
with impunity enslave its women, or hush their voice. In so far 
as society advances in Christian culture, the veil that has ob- 
scured woman's presence and worth has been removed, and we 
are permitted to see her exercising in self-sacrificing devotion 
and love in the things that pertain to the purity and uplift of 
both Church and State. She has unfalteringly come up with 
man, cheering and comforting through the stages of savagery, 
barbarism, on up into modern civilization. 

Feminine characteristics are conceded to be of finer quality 
than those that are purely masculine. Her tenderness and kind- 
ness shows a bravery and heroism outrivaling that of the battle- 
field. No woman's voice was heard in the clamor for the life of 
Jesus. A man betrayed him, one denied him, nine more fled. A 
man pronounced the death sentence, a woman begged to have 
his life spared. Women followed him to the cross,, shedding 
tears of sympathy, the first to the tomb, and the first to greet 
him after his resurrection. The newly bom church received 
a feminine name — " The Bride of Christ." 

Moral elements in a larger degree are needed for the eman- 
215 



216 THE WORK OF WOMEN 

cipation of society, and Christian women are largely needed 
to supply these elements. Woman being commissioned with 
man by the Messiah, robed in the armor of affection, will go 
forth to conquer the world for Christ. The shining and singing 
hosts of heaven will be pleased to enlist under her banner of 
love, and to smite desperately with the weapons of the Spirit. 
Tracing the Scripture records, we find that God chose woman 
to teach and exhort the people the same as man. Deborah the 
prophetess and judge, beautiful in character and life, possessed 
a genius superior to any recorded in Hebrew history from 
Moses to David. She stands alone of all the rulers of Israel 
unrebuked by prophet and inspired historian. In Abraham's 
big faith, the ideal of the ages, we see woven the heartstrings 
of his loving companion — Sarah. Miriam helped her big broth- 
ers into a tenderness and faithfulness that enabled them to en- 
dure the strenuous life of emancipators. Abigail became an 
ornament to the brow of David. Ruth set the high standard of 
fidelity to a people whose faith centered in the eternal God. 
Esther in her love for God and principle turned the tide of 
jealousy and hatred of a proud State upon its own head. 
Elizabeth was pleased to reproduce her piety and undaunted 
courage and fidelity in the person of John the Baptist. Mary 
Hstened to the word of God and cared tenderly and faithfully 
for him whom it was the Father's good pleasure to give to the 
world. Truly, women with men wrought with a faithfulness 
that has determined an advancing race. 

When we look for the foundations and scale the super- 
structure of the :church that has ever been faithful in our care, 
we see just such elements of true and tender womanhood that 
has graced other periods of human history. Feminine touches 
are everywhere to be seen in our church organism, not only of 
beauty, but of strength and courage. With what wonderful 
fortitude our sisterhood has sustained the overwhelming re- 
verses of fortune. Disasters that have broken down the spirit 
of man and prostrated him in the dust, seem to call forth all 



T. S. MOHERMAN 217 

her energies giving such intrepidity and elevation of character 
approaching upon occasions even to the subHme. 

Nothing can be more touching than to behold our sisters 
in Christ, whose sphere has been one series of obscurity, sub- 
mission and dependence, rise suddenly into mental force, and 
spiritual power to be more numerous than man in the prayer- 
meeting, and in teaching in our Sunday schools, to be man's 
comforter and supporter under misfortunes, abiding with un- 
shrinking firmness the most bitter blasts of adversity. " As 
the vine has long twined its graceful foliage about the sturdy 
oak, being lifted by it into sunshine, will when the proud oak 
is rifted by the thunderbolt cling about it still with its caressing 
tendrils, bind up its shattered limbs ; so it seems beautifully or- 
dained by Providence, that woman who is the dependent and 
ornament of man in his happier hours, should be his stay and 
solace when smitten with sudden calamity, twining herself into 
the rugged recesses of his nature, giving support to his droop- 
ing head, and binding up his broken heart." This has been the 
nature of our Brethren's reinforcement as he has risen trium- 
phant through the crises of the past two hundred years. 

When we look for the names of notable women of the Breth- 
ren Church, they seem to be hidden as securely as the names of 
women in Bible times. Men's names figures prominently, wom- 
en's only incidentally. We will not attempt to give a reason for 
the disparagement, but simply to say that any man's greatness 
in its larger elements is feminine. God said " it is not good for 
man to be alone." He knew that he would be a failure being all 
alone. He made him a helpmeet. 

In the group that make up the foundation pillars of our 
Brotherhood are to be found the names of three women : Anna 
Margaretha Mack, Joanna Naethiger and Joanna Kipping; 
only one short of making up half of the first group baptized. 
They too with the brethren sought earnestly the truth of the 
Gospel. They drank from the bitter cup of persecution. They 
cheerfully left father and mother, brother and sister, and the 



218 THE WORK OF WOMEN 

dearest spot on earth — their homes, for Christ's sake. Their 
large hearts and buoyant faith did not fail them when the 
question of emigrating to the new world was being discussed. 
Their love of home and children did not cause them to" falter 
when it came to thoughts of perils at sea, many times intensified, 
due to the poor means of transportation in those days. Of 
the two hundred and fifty-five recorded names of those baptized 
in Europe, eighty-eight are of women, thus showing us the 
large part women played in the work of the church during her 
infant days. 

Persecutions working havoc in the mother churches, and 
not able to find a well-governed province in which to live the 
simple life, and exercise in the simple faith of the Master, plans 
were laid involving the interests of two continents. Good-byes 
were said by hearts full of unspeakable grief, and eyes were 
bathed in tears. Through a series of emigrations, the old vine- 
yards were broken up and the choice plants transplanted into 
new and virgin soil. The transplanting in many respects was 
a bitter experience. The voyage was a hazardous one, hunger, 
disease, homesickness and death made up the bitter cup. 
Mothers giving up their loved ones to the angry seas presents 
a pictures that masculine hearts have not the cunning to give 
the word that comforts. The emigrations of 1719, 1729 and 
1733, constitute the three great transplantings. These tendrils 
took quiet root in the new soil. Political, social, religious and 
physical conditions were favorable for much fruit' bearing. 
Three years' care and nourishing produced the first fruits in 
America, six souls are baptized on Christmas day. Two of the 
six are women. Sister Martin Umer, and Sister Henry Landis, 
just one short of making up half of the first group baptized in 
America. 

Pioneers of the faith of Christ were they in direct contact 
with the soil with comparatively no equipment standing between 
production and consumption to lighten the drudgery of life. 
It would seem that pioneering would fall heavier upon man 



T. S. MOHERMAN 219 

than upon woman, but it seems not to be the case. Man has 
the freedom of outdoor Hfe, the blue sky to charm and kindle 
the imagination. The sun with its health-giving rays, and an 
atmosphere filled with the aroma of budding and blooming 
fields. But the outlines of a pioneer woman's sphere is a little 
shack with one or two rooms, not only a place to shelter the 
human part of the family, but is cheerfully surrendered to any- 
thing else of domestic interest. She cheerfully gives up space 
for the mending and making of harness, blacksmithing is done 
from the kitchen stove. Implements for farm use are whittled 
out by the old fireplace. Additional room is surrendered for 
the storing of grain and seeds awaiting the vision of higher 
markets. The starving lamb and sick pig are brought to the 
house to have their ailments attended to, in short anything of 
domestic worth seems well pitched over against the place where 
the wife and children stay. Yet the good housewife through it 
all keeps the altar fires burning, and sings the sweetest songs, 
looking steadfastly for the fulfillment of her dreams of a larger 
and more quiet day. Not only so, but she cheerfully gives 
room in her own humble cottage for church purposes. She 
spends anxious days previous to the meetings that everything 
may be in readiness, including even refreshments for those 
who come from a distance. The appointed day is full of fel- 
lowship, everyone is made welcome, kindling a desire for their 
return again. The day is past, the wife keenly conscious of 
having done God service, and whose heart has been rekindled 
by much well-wishing, puts herself to the task of rearranging 
her house for domestic purposes. This is of a nature of our 
pioneer sisterhood, who have made possible our larger Broth- 
erhood. The feminine elements of our modern Brotherhood 
have drunk freely from pioneer fountains, the grace and beauty 
and unfaltering devotion of the women that adorned the begin- 
ning of our church edifice have been lively influences all the 
way along. 

From the Germantown, Pennsylvania, church the mission- 



220 THE WORK OF WOMEN 

ary spirit radiated and illumined the country about. Churches 
were organized, periodical visits were made to them. Though 
only brethren's names are mentioned in their organization, one's 
scrutinizing eye discovers in the elements making up the suc- 
cess of the early days that at least half should be credited 
to our sisterhood. Yet she in her self-sacrificing devotion is 
willing that man should wear the crown, and in his name suc- 
cess should be recorded. She has never sought position or 
prestige for herself, but to train children for the Master, and 
build up Christian institutions whose influence shall outlast the 
carvings upon marble and brass. 

For a few moments allow your eyes to follow the geo- 
graphical outlines of our great Brotherhood as they were be- 
ing made from generation to generation. Note the resistance 
overcome in travel, and the sacrifice incident to the planting 
the simple faith in new and often hostile territory. From the 
mother church in America our sisterhood and brotherhood join- 
ing in the " Go ye," move down into the valleys of Maryland 
and Virginia. They ford turbulent streams, they cut their way 
through dense forests, clear up little tracts of land here and 
there, dedicating the first fruits of their labor for the preaching 
of the Gospel. Looking westward we see them climbing to- 
gether the rugged Alleghanies. They move softly along the 
Monongahela, Allegheny and Ohio rivers, crossing in many 
instances the fertile yet uncultivated lands of Ohio and Indiana. 
This movement gaining so much momentum that the plains of 
Illinois, Missouri, Iowa, Kansas and Nebraska are soon meas- 
ured off by primitive modes of travel. The impregnable 
Rockies and desert plains soon yield to their invincible faith, 
and settlements are found dotting the Pacific slope. Looking 
northward toward where the icebergs grow, the Dakotas and 
Canada extended a welcome that could not be resisted. Not 
only so, this great faith movement has had a wonderful re- 
bound, finding a refuge in Europe and Asia where flourishing 
churches are to be found. Have our sisters in Christ the 



T. S. MOHERMAN 221 

courage and strength to overcome the obstacles incident to such 
movements, afoot, on horseback, the old stage, by rail and by 
boat? She has covered the whole distance with man, and 
Christian homes and churches are the remaining monuments of 
her adventures. 

Our sisterhood has not been noted in official service. She 
has not looked upon a church office as an inviting field, yet 
she has not shirked duty when the spirit of liberty laid hold 
of her, setting before her work which only a nature like hers 
could successfully perform. 1 Tim. 5 : 9-10 suggests a field of 
dignified service for women in the church of Christ in the days 
of the Apostles, was given a personal application in the early 
days of the Brethren Church. The first record of the election 
of a sister to the office of deaconess was invested by Bro. Alex- 
ander Mack at Schwarzenau, Germany. Sister Schreder la- 
bored in this office seven years after the death of her husband, 
(Brumbaugh's History of the Brethren). From the German- 
town poor book has been gleaned the following: " Anno 1769 
the 20th of August, according to the council of the Holy Ghost, 
in the community of the Brethren and Sisters of Germantown 
and according to the manner and regulations of the Apostolic 
congregation of the first Christians was elected by vote as a 
ministress, (deaconess) the sister Margaretha Bayerin. 
(Brumbaugh page 177). She was above seventy years of age 
at the time of her election." The later history of the Brethren 
has no record of the perpetuation of the deaconess office. 

As to our sisterhood being represented in the ministerial 
office we have some few examples. " Where the spirit of the 
Lord is there is liberty," seems to have had freedom of expres- 
sion in the different stages of the growth of the church. Har- 
riet Livermore, daughter of Judge Livermore of Concord, 
New Hampshire, was born April 14, 1788. In her missionary 
tours she became acquainted with the Quakers and Brethren at 
Philadelphia, whom she learned to love. Questioning her 
former baptism she was led by her growing convictions to be 



222 THE WORK OF WOMEN 

baptized January 2, 1825. Through the influence of Bro. 
Peter Keiser she was permitted to preach in the church of the 
Brethren at Philadelphia. Notably among the converts of 
Harriet Livermore was Sarah Richter Major who became a 
famous preacher among the Brethren. She began to preach 
when only twenty years of age. She possessed rare power in 
the pulpit as well as in personal work. Was born August 
29, 1808. Baptized at the age of eighteen, and married at 
thirty-four. Died at Greenfield, Ohio, September 18, 1884. 
Funeral service by Eld. James Quinter. Hers was a remark- 
able career. Repeated attempts were made to dissuade her 
from public speaking, but her inspired soul could not be 
quieted. She could find peace of conscience only in proclaim- 
ing the eternal riches of God. Overcoming opposition in her 
simple and modest way, the field of labor gradually grew. Ad- 
joining churches of the Brethren invited her to occupy their 
pulpits, which she did, never failing to be invited back a second 
time. Those who were prejudiced against women preachers 
were cured of their malady after hearing Sister Major. She 
with her husband did the most of their church ,work in different 
parts of Ohio, and wherever they labored, the cause of Christ 
grew. Doors would be open to them everywhere, even school- 
houses, infirmaries, and prisons were visited by them. They 
did most of their traveling by private conveyance. One in- 
stance will show how earnest they were to fill appointments. 
One cold, stormy morning they started to church a distance 
of about eight miles. When not half way their carrige broke 
down. Having two horses they made the remainder of the 
trip on horseback, and filled their appointment. Sister Major 
was a true mother, never neglecting her home and family. She 
never turned a beggar away without help, neither did she 
fail to preach Christ to the people. 

Among the women that have been given the right to 
preach in more modern times are Mattie A. Lear of Illinois, now 
deceased, Cassie Beery VanDyke of Chicago, and Bertha Mil- 



T. S. MOHERMAN 223 

ler Neher, of Milford, Indiana. Mattie A. Lear was born in. 
New Jersey, August 17, 1838, married at twenty-one, baptized 
four years later, and died at the age of sixty-four. Mattie was 
a teacher, writer, and preacher of considerable ability. Taught 
nearly two years in Mt. Morris College when it first came into 
the hands of the Brethren, wrote much for the Gospel Visitor, 
nearly thirty-five years ago, and was graceful and fluent in her 
public addresses. She often filled the home pulpit, and did 
some preaching among the neighboring churches, her address- 
es at Sunday-school and ministerial meetings were in special 
favor. 

Not only are our sisters good talkers, but they are ex- 
cellent writers. Their compositions have given comfort to 
many a soul. We will have space to mention only a few 
names. Wealthy A. Burkholder was associated with the church 
paper {Primitive Christian) at Huntingdon, Pa. Besides 
working in the printing office, she did a considerable editorial 
work on the Young Disciple. This was in the days of the 
revival of printing in our church. She is now presiding over 
her own home with dignity and fidelity at Newburg, Pa. 

The name of Adaline Hohf Beery of Huntingdon, Pa., 
who will soon address you, should be mentioned, whom you 
know and who was associated with the Golden Dawn as 
editor in those days when reading was somewhat scarce in the 
average home. Her talent has also been richly expressed in 
gems of poetry. 

Elizabeth Delp Rosenberger of Covington, Ohio, has con- 
tributed to woman's worth in not only caring for the home of 
a doctor who is scrupulously particular, but she has continued 
her literary and church activities in the free use of her pen. 
She is keeping the fires burning sweetly upon the hearth of 
many a home. 

Sister D. L. Miller of Mt. Morris, 111., was born in Phila- 
delphia, Pa., September 29, 1848, united with the church at the 
age of fourteen, married in 1868. Her work for the church 



224 THE WORK OF WOMEN 

has been missionary heralding, writing and personal work. 
She with her husband has a number of times visited the mis- 
sions of the ;church in foreign fields. They visited Palestine 
six different times. Twice traveled around the world, 
making three trips to India. Sister Miller has written a very 
popular book entitled, Letters to Young People. Hers has 
been one constant zeal for the Lord and the church. 

In my search for the names of sisters who have dis- 
tinguished themselves in different parts of our great Brother- 
hood, I have the following from Bro. Daniel Hays of Broad- 
way, Va. : " I cannot cite you to individual sisters distinguished 
one above another in Virginia for the part taken in establish- 
ing churches and the furtherance of church work; but for 
order, unity, solidity and winsomeness in the public assembly, 
and as chaste keepers of hospitable homes, I will place the Vir- 
ginia sisters on the roll of fame equal to any people of any 
age." 

Women and Money. Usually woman does not hold very 
much of this world's goods in her own right, yet she is natu- 
rally a philanthropist. One or two cases will prove that our 
Brethren have been outclassed in this. 

Sister Barbara Kindig Gish was bom in Augusta County, 
Virginia, August 28, 1829. Married in 1848. In a short time 
they moved to Illinois by private conveyance, it taking six 
months to complete the journey. A few years later she with 
her husband joined the Brethren Church. They made a re- 
turn trip to their native State by private conveyance, camping 
out each night by the way. She with her husband did much 
visiting among the churches in the South, and Southwest. 
Upon one occasion they spent about nine months in visiting the 
churches in Tennessee and Virginia. On this trip they did 
much of their traveling on horseback. In the interests of the 
church they engaged themselves in Louisana, Texas, Arkan- 
sas, Missouri, Kansas, Colorado. Sister Gish was a good 
singer. She knew how to comfort the sick, how to encourage 



T. S. MOHERMAN 225 

the distressed, and how to relieve the troubles of the afflicted. 
"Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth" was 
verified beautifully in their lives. The Lord blessed them 
abundantly, and they knew how to spend it. Upon the death 
of Bro. Gish, all the property fell to Sister Gish without any 
provision as to how it should be disposed of. About eighteen 
months after the death of her husband she turned over about 
$60,000 to the Missionary and Tract Committee, constituting 
what is now known as the Gish Fund. An additional $10,000 
was distributed among relatives. 

As one whose love for the cause of Christ, and zeal for the 
church of her choice, and philanthropy shown many institutions 
and avenues depending upon charity, who is a worthy example 
to any brother or sister in our loved Brotherhood, we mention 
the name of Sister Mary A. Geiger of 2032 North Broad St., 
Philadelphia. She was born February 25, 1828. Her mother 
was Mennonite, and her father Lutheran. She and her hus- 
band were baptized in Philadelphia in 1852 by Bro. John Fox. 
She has been and is now the main support of the first Philadel- 
phia church. She has helped keep the fires burning on the altar 
of the Germantown church for years. It would have suffered 
severely had she not come to its relief. She erected the Geiger 
Memorial buildings at a cost of $45,000. Is supporting the 
work entirely at that place. The unsectarian home for the 
aged in Philadelphia is largely (fifteen years) supported by 
her. She endowed a free bed ($5,000) in the Methodist hos- 
pital in the same city. She endowed the chair of New Testa-* 
ment Literature and Exegesis in Juniata College to the amount 
of $25,000. She has given freely to all our missions, schools, 
and many of our churches and Old People's Homes. The poor 
she has a tender regard for. She has been blessed with means 
and is using them for God and humanity. Her Christian piety 
takes no pleasure in proclaiming it. 

In the " Go ye," our sisterhood stands first in point of num- 
bers now engaged in the different mission fields, and in peril- 
is 



226 THE WORK OF WOMEN 

ous times on sea and land she has triumphed marvelously. 
Time and space will not permit a sketch of each one's life, 
we sum up briefly by giving their names. The first in the list 
is Sister Christian Hope, now of Kansas, missionary to Den- 
mark, and this too when they did not have the advantage of 
the experience of predecessors to suggest ways of organizing 
and conducting the work. In 1877 Sisters Eby and Fry with 
their husbands were sent to visit the Scandinavian field to 
give whatever encouragement that may be needed. The re- 
maining names of sisters called of God are the following: 

Mary Emmert Stover. Alice King Ebey. 

Bertha Ryan, (returned). Flora Nickey Ross. 

Anna Shull Forney. Elizabeth Gibble McCann. 

Emma Homer Eby. Nora Flory Berkebile. 

Effie Showalter Long. Ella Miller Brubaker 

Anna Detwiler Blough. Eliza B. Miller. 

Gertrude Rowland Emmert. Sadie J. Miller. 

Florence Baker Pittenger. Mary N. Quinter. 

Nora Arnold Lichty. Josephine Powell. 

These have wrought marvelously, they have been invinci- 
ble in disease-ravaged lands, and have played the true un- 
daunted heroine in the midst of hostile peoples. They have 
caused the Star of Bethlehem to appear in the horizon of 
many souls in heathen lands. They have carved their names 
upon tables of memory, and their work already wrought is a 
perpetual invitation to sisters of the faith to join in the work 
of God that shall eventually fill the whole earth. 

" Where the spirit of God is there is liberty," has brought 
our sisterhood remarkably to the front the past decades. They 
are the ones that are carrying forward our " Aid Society " 
work, ever solicitous of the health, comfort and sustenance 
of those in need, and ambitious to be an earning power that 
they might be enrolled as faithful givers to the philanthropies 
of Christ. Our city missions are taking hold of urban popula- 



T. S. MOHERMAN 227 

tion with commendable courage and success since the personal 
worth of women has been enlisted. In the Christian workers' 
and prayer meetings her voice in song and prayer evinces a 
leadership that reaches out after a larger millennium of piety 
and grace. In the training department of the church (the 
Sunday school) our sisterhood has captured the primary 
classes almost exclusively, proving herself a teacher of adapt- 
ability and courage in planting and cultivating the eternal 
Word, thus giving over to the church a young and vigorous 
membership. 

As civilization is depending upon the kind of homes that 
are being fostered, we see woman again standing at the thresh- 
old of all progress. Within our Fraternity she has with 
dignity maintained the Christian home, the voucher of good 
men and women for the Master's service. Her thought is con- 
stantly absorbed in the physical, industrial, moral and religious 
welfare of those whom it is God's good pleasure to give into 
her bosom. At the altar of her heart, sweet incense of love is 
perpetually burning, thus giving to our race its sweetest 
thought, " Home sweet home," the guarantee of a larger and 
more aggressive Brotherhood. 

We can find no happier point than this to sum up the 
work of our sisterhood for the church the past two hundred 
years, setting the pace for her younger sisters the coming cen- 
turies. May we not say that she has abhorred evil more, loved 
righteousness more, journeyed more amid perils, suffered more, 
prayed more, and wept more for Jesus and humanity than her 
big strong brothers of the faith. 




Adaline Hohf Beery 



Part Two 
The Work of Women in the Church 

By Adaline Hohf Beery 

The subject is almost a statement of synonyms. To begin 
with, the Church is a bride, veiled in the virgin white of purity 
and the orange blossoms of sweetness, to be sure, but pledg- 
ing herself to undying loyalty and loving service to the Lord, 
her Betrothed. In the first glow of wifely devotion and digni- 
ty, she is eager to keep her house immaculate during her 
Lover's absence, so that she may meet his satisfied smile when 
he returns at nightfall. Many times a day she sends him little 
love-missives by wireless, and her own heart bounds to the 
prompt and generous responses. She is a happy woman. 

And then the Church is a mother. She fosters tenderly 
her children, the distinctive graces of Christianity, and puts 
herself between them and the insidious nightshade of evil which 
one can reach through the hedge. She gathers all her family 
around her knee, and instructs them in the virtues of her 
house, — a house of nobler lineage than the bluest blood of 
the oldest dynasty in the world. She impresses upon them the 
most solemn allegiance to their Father, who is the King, — the 
Aristocrat of kings. She counsels, to the utmost, fraternity 
of feeling and the freest surrender of self to service. 

But though the Church is a woman, the children are of 
both sexes. Yet in the administration of a saving policy to a 
needy world, gender is obliterated. For the present purpose, 
however, we will let the distinction stand. 

The first idea that most people get of a woman is that she 
is a helper. The author of Genesis has said as much. It is 

229 



THE WORK OF WOMEN 

significant that very little of good or of might has been ac- 
complished without help from some one, — most likely a wom- 
an. But if she has helped man in many intricate and doubtful 
places, she has also, alone, towed many a beneficent project to 
a successful terminal. 

The highest, and the humblest, position in the Church is 
that of minister. Highest, because he is the mouthpiece of 
God ; humblest because he is servant of all. The ministry in- 
cludes teaching; and teacher is of common gender. When 
the assembled church breaks into little circles for Bible study, 
in the center of each circle you will find, more than often, a 
woman, teaching. 

I do not know whether it has ever been explained why 
men minister mostly in the pulpit, and women in the Sunday 
school, but the fact is patent to all. The general concession 
seems to be that certain feminine qualities of mind, heart and 
soul, make the woman's work more effective, at least among 
the children. Many times her intuition helps her out. She 
may not have the powers of argument of the " legal male 
mind," but the unfeigned love and interest of a woman's sym- 
pathetic heart need no argument. Then she has such a 
" homey " disposition. She does not read essays on justifica- 
tion, or the Trinity, or prophecy, but gets close to her class and 
makes chums of them. Everybody is " one of the family." 
And so, with a gradual tightening of the lines, the net is 
drawn in, with a glorious haul of human fishes. 

The Church will always be familiar with the poor, the sick, 
and the sorrowful. When a man comes in from his day's work, 
he tells of a pinching case of destitution he has just heard of 
not far away. At once the woman begins to rummage in old 
wardrobes, and through pantry shelves, and stuffing a basket 
full, takes or sends it to the spot. Are they worthy of the 
charity? Probably she didn't think to ask. She only knew 
there was a woman, and a baby, and the potatoes were all 
cooked yesterday, and the coal bucket was only half full any 



ADALINE HOHF BEERY 231 

more. She may be more spasmodic than judicial, but the 
spasm leaves her soul refreshed, and a straitened sister pro- 
vided for and grateful. 

There is a case of fever in the neighborhood. The child 
has been sick a week. The parents are weary and worn. The 
woman from the church calls, inquires, and says she will stay 
the night. She sits down by the dim lamp, looking at the 
medicine bottle, now at the patient. The relaxed parents sleep. 
When the child tosses, she gently lifts its head, shakes up the 
pillow, and turns the cool side up. She opens the sash care- 
fully, to let the fresh air in. When the child wakens, she smiles 
reassuringly. When dawn begins to paint the east, she retires, 
leaving a comfortable memory of a soft voice, tender hands and 
a kind heart. 

Now the news comes that the janitor's wife is dead. That 
means grief, bewilderment, discouragement in the janitor's 
family. The church woman is one of the first to come in at the 
kitchen door, and with quick eye seeing what needs to be done 
first, she picks up the fretting infant, combs little Tommy, and 
with gentle words helps ten-year-old Susie, tugging with the 
breakfast dishes. With the speed acquired by long practice, 
she straightens out the living-room, makes the beds, and gets 
the next meal agoing. The father, sitting sobbing in a corner, 
is calmed by the quiet step, the tactful hands, the pleasant 
voice. The sense of being helped in a hard place is sweet. 

One of the commonest outlets of the helping instinct in 
woman is the founding of Dorcas societies. The needle seems 
to be her natural ally. Its products run to useful and com- 
fortable shapes, which find their way into the bare homes of 
the submerged population, where prices are things never men- 
tioned. Sometimes the whole family of needles conspire to 
make a public exhibit and sale, and lo, we have all but fragrant 
nosegays done in silk, zephyr scarfs, and beautiful slippers. 
The treasury begins to brighten up, and the women's favorite 
benevolence keeps up joyfully. Groceries can be bought. 



232 THE WORK OF WOMEN 

woodchoppers hired, and doctor bills paid for those whom the 
buffeting waves of life have left almost stranded. 

Now we are but a step from the mission field proper. The 
woman is the one most intimately acquainted with every nook 
and corner of her own home, and it but follows that she 
should be a keen observer in other homes. If conditions are 
below her standard, she instinctively devises means for better- 
ing them. And as home is not a house merely, the spirit of 
the home appeals to her even more. She feels likes making it 
her business to go about and lift people. Where there is great 
congestion, as in large cities, this desire is most compelling. 
The church-mother, seeing the crying need, and the offered 
loaf-giver, brings the two together, and we have organized 
city missionary work. 

The results which add up the quickest come from work 
with the children. So we have all sorts of schools established, 
— ragged schools, sewing schools, cooking schools, manual 
training schools. Not only are the children helped to cleaner 
and more useful lives, but the avenue to the parents' hearts is 
also thrown open. Of course a lesson in the Scriptures is part 
of every curriculum. So is also a course in soap and water. 
In fact, these are miniature universities, which indeed every 
true home ought to be, and the missionary teacher is doctor of 
laws, medicine, theology, literature, pedagogy, and chemistry, 
president and janitor, all at once. But to see the bunch of 
frowzy heads grow up into respectable and self-respecting men 
and women, with high purpose, is worth a king's ransom. 

But " woman's sphere " is not bounded by home, nor 
neighborhood, nor city, nor country. The great round world 
itself is her domain. No matter how " domestic " her tastes 
may be, she can make a habitat under an Indian banyan, or in 
a mining camp of the Cordilleras, or on an Andean slope. 
And this not for a winter resort, or a summer residence, but 
to make the " foreign " land kin to her own. The task is 
Herculean, but, though her body is fragile, her soul is six 



ADALINE HOHF BEERY 233 

feet ten, and in the prime of optimism and working capacity. 
Women missionaries are crossing on every steamship line, and 
settling in every antipodes. The Lord of all the earth recog- 
nizes her competence, and gives her souls for her hire. Maid 
and matron, mother and wife, alike have received the ambas- 
sador's insignia, and the prayer-tent encloses a Shekinah to the 
simple-hearted, wondering tribes. 

A most valuable asset in this branch of woman's work 
is the knowledge of medicine. The reasons are obvious. If 
she can bring to a baffling case of sickness the antidote from 
Nature's pharmacy, the door will be left ajar for another visit, 
when the remedy for soul apathy may be administered. In- 
deed, the whole work of missions is healing. Rebuild the 
broken-down body-temples, and you will find an "open 
sesame " to the distorted soul that sits within. 

It seems to me the nearest likeness to Jesus in this world 
is a consecrated medical missionary. Of course there are many 
such who are men, but there is a proscribed territory where a 
man may not enter. Into the rigidly-guarded harems of the 
East, where beautiful maidens pass their lives in the most dis- 
mal monotony of emptiness, a persistent woman often finds 
her way, and is not slow to drop the seed of God's Word. And 
in an indirect way, the lords of these magnificent households 
are reached, the effect of whose Christianizing is salutary in the 
extreme. 

One of the fine faculties indigenous to woman is nursing. 
The training schools are turning out a splendid ally to the doc- 
tor and the missionary. The nurse is available in all lands, 
among all peoples, in all environments. As a church force, she 
can be intensely effective. An ideal phase of beneficence is for 
the individual churches to employ a nurse, well-equipped 
in her profession and gentle in spirit, to wait on all the sick 
within their bounds who are too poor themselves to hire such 
skilled help. I can scarcely conceive of a more practical 
charity. Examples of grievous neglect will occur to every 



234 THE WORK OF WOMEN 

mind. How nearly an angel is woman when she so ministers 
to the simple, uneducated, and poor, but who also have feel- 
ings! 

Woman usually has a genius for pastoral work. She is 
naturally inclined to visiting, more than man, and with a few 
words she gets hold of the situation, and her intuition tells 
her the rest. With a cheery leaflet, a pretty print, or a bunch 
of garden posies, she soon wins the confidence of the entire 
family, who stand about in shy little groups, but with eyes full 
of unmistakable admiration. " The good woman," with her 
habitual smile as advance agent, never enters by a rusty door, 
for the oil of sympathy is on the hinges, and it flies wide open 
as to a royal ambassador. What a fine opportunity the church 
shepherd has of leading the timid flock into the corral ! 

Woman is also an oracle when it comes to questions of 
civic righteousness. Here again, legal aspects mean little to 
her, for she looks only at the right, the comfort, the justice, 
the courtesy involved. She denounces, she remonstrates, she 
pleads, she preaches; and with first-hand knowledge of her 
subject, she can make her words burn into the dull public 
conscience. So it has come about that even legal phrases 
have been recast in a more beneficent mold, and already intem- 
perance, social impurity, child-slavery, and vile literature are 
feeling a strong grip on the throat. 

Because of her uncompromising hostility to intoxicants and 
tobacco, woman is the most consistent teacher of purity to the 
young who come within her sphere. Boys instinctively hide 
the telltale evidence when they meet a clean-faced woman 
with frank address. Let her follow up her advantage with the 
utmost tact and discretion, and there will be rare fruit for her 
plucking before another decade. 

The pulpit is not more poweful than a hook-and-line soul- 
fisher ; and though that fisher may be a woman, yet it does not 
follow that she cannot, with intelligence and fervor, minister 
to a composite congregation. 



ADALINE HOHF BEERY 235 

When Paul wrote to the Romans, he sent his letter by Sis- 
ter Phebe, whom, as a servant of the Church, he recommended 
without stint. She conveyed his greetings to other beloved 
sisters and tireless workers, — Priscilla, and Mary, and Persis, 
and Julia. The modern Church has her Priscillas, adepts in 
sewing and weaving, her Lydias, noted for their generous 
entertainment, and her Marys, who spend much of their time 
reading their letter from Jesus. In diversity of adaptation, 
there is unity of purpose, and the church is braced at all 
points of her activity. 

Though the majority of women are given to epistolary 
writing mainly, yet there are a goodly number who have a 
positive genius for dissertation and parable. In fact, their 
pen treatment of living issues in the church is often with what 
is termed " masculine vigor," which evidently implies unusual 
excellence. Yet these same women might be tongue-tied in a 
simple little prayer-meeting, with no reflection on the women, 
for they have not been endowed with the gift of speech. Re- 
ligious journalism has a world-wide field, and women are not 
only contributing lay articles, but* are filling the editor's office 
with distinction. Peculiarly is this true of papers for children, 
whose constituency is of the most promising material. 

The most beautiful thing in woman, however, is her fac- 
ulty for mothering. Not only is she referee for all child 
problems in her own home, but her large sympathies are bound- 
ed only by the circle of young people whom she touches. She 
makes a nest for a stray orphan, receives the confidences of a 
young man who boards with her, and counsels very gently 
with the girl just growing into self-consciousness. The train- 
ing of a little child requires the greatest wisdom to which a 
man or woman can attain. After many disastrous experiments 
in methods, and comparing of notes with each other, the most 
progressive mothers have instituted little congresses, where 
the vital questions of child-nurture may have the freest discus- 
sion. To these meetings an effort is made to get the mothers 



236 THE WORK OF WOMEN 

from the lower strata of society, — the ignorant, the indif- 
ferent, or even vicious. To see their dull faces light up with 
understanding of their tremendous and dignified responsibility, 
and to see the fruit of their teaching in their poor, shabby 
homes, is sufficient reward to the missionary mothers who give 
cheerfully of their time, thought and means to propagate so 
emphatic a benevolence. 

Woman has also proven herself a capable office-holder in 
the Church. She may be secretary in the council meetings, 
chorister in the praise services, treasurer or even superintend- 
ent of the Sunday school, and no one doubts the efficiency of 
her services. In committee work she is very dependable, es- 
pecially in the matter of soliciting. She makes a very proper 
delegate to a convention, and can even wield the gavel herself, 
if necessity so commands. 

It is remarkable that most of the fine traits of Christian 
character are classified as feminine in the original languages. 
Witness these graces: meekness (the [characteristic of one 
of the world's heroes), gentleness, loveliness, goodness, peace, 
love, patience (suggesting another hero), faith (the key-note 
of Abraham's life), temperance (remember the Rechabites), 
good report, truth, honesty, justice (told of the survivor of the 
flood), knowledge (note the famous Solomon), and even the 
strong Roman virtue, which is defined as being the sum of all 
corporeal and mental excellences in man. The word fruit, 
which comprises all, is likewise feminine. 

All these imply exercise, or growth, and a woman is an 
anomaly if she is not getting somewhere. And so we come 
around again to our opening remark, that this is a discussion of 
synonyms. Wherever there is work, there are women; and 
most women are scarcely on speaking terms with anything 
else. And the Church is a mother, with her hands exceedingly 
full. And since there are more women than men in the 
Church, it makes more work for both women and preacher, to 



ADALINE HOHF BEERY 237 

rend the garments of self-complacency and expose the bare 
souls of the men to the keen thrust of the Spirit's sword. 

The prayers and presence of the women keep the Church 
stanch. There may be other pillars, but the women are stones 
in the basement wall. Therefore we have the following equa- 
tion : Work plus women plus the Church equal a splendid up- 
heaval of righteousness in the forbidding Sahara of universal 
sin. 



THE SHADOW ON THE DIAL. 
[1708—1908.] 
A village in a quiet German vale, 
The cradle of a sturdy, well-knit creed; 
A river, shining through the summer mead, 
The font of christening for the young belief; 
A teasing blast that blew it from its nest. 
The church that would not like so odd a child; 
A flight to a far haven in the West, 
Free worship lighting in its friendly woods; 
A virile doctrine in a virgin soil. 
The branching of a hardy brotherhood; 
A separate species with a steady thrift. 
The quaint embodiment of simple truth: — 
This is the story our forefathers tell. 

Twice on the dial of the centuries 

The shadow its colossal orb has made. 

The seed of that stanch faith has blown afar, 

Redeeming barrens in the world's wide belt, — 

From wild Sierras to the Caribbees, 

From Texan plains to lonely northern trails, 

From bank to bank of the Atlantic gulf, 

Into the valleys of the stark, stern Alps, 

To blue-eyed Swede and peasant-hearted Dane, 

To lesser Asia, by the Middle Sea, 

To India, torrid, vast antipodes, — 

Till now the fruit is yellowing in the sun 

Of God's dear mercy, kissing every zone. 



238 THE WORK OF WOMEN 

" Go, publish to the world my gospel plain." 
Not with bare pulpit homily content. 
Impulsively the zealous pioneers 
Impressed for service things inanimate, 
And, putting mind into a dumb machine, 
They made it speak the Word a thousandfold, — 
More clear, more far, more cogent, and more calm, 
Than voice or conduct could be trusted for. 
So knowledge, faith, and love, are multiplied, 
The leaves of truth go fluttering on all winds. 
All nations catch the saving talisman. 
And make one race, all variance reconciled. 
One hope, one service, one acknowledged Lord. 

" The wise his heart to learning will apply." 

The cry of wisdom in the thoroughfares, 

So long unheeded, has been taken up, 

And preacher, plowman, carpenter and clerk 

Join in the slogan, "We must educate!" 

The germs of thought that labored to be born. 

And started life with such a small caress, 

Are now broad-shouldered, keen, and capable. 

By friendly spirits fitly housed at length. 

To high resolve and discipline of self, 

Commanding all who to the portals come. 

This is the product of the finest school, — 

Breadth, height, and depth, of mind, and heart, and soul. 

What has the great, unresting shadow traced? 
All round the dial runs the legend clear, 
" Thus far hath loving-kindness followed thee." 
Sing sweeter, congregation of redeemed! 
Discourse in gentle tones, O ministers! 
Click faster, consecrated linotypes! 
Teach brotherhood and faith, O colleges! 
May shining threads of thankfulness sincere 
The warp and woof of every life enrich; 
Come, wind the horn, ye climbers of the cliffs. 
And let God hear your full antiphonies 
As with attent, delighted air he leans 
Over the parapet of Paradise! 



Chapter Ten 
The Sunday School Work of the Church 




/. B. Trout 



Part One 
The Importance of the Sunday-School Work 

By I. B. Trout 

When, a few years ago, I stood in the midst of the great 
wheat fields of the Northwest and contemplated the harvest 
that was at hand, the hundreds of millions of bushels of grain 
that must soon be gathered or else lost to the owners of the 
soil, I wondered from where the army of harvest hands, needed 
in so great a work, would come. Then the answer was, that 
train-load after train-load would come from the thickly-popu- 
lated places in the East and the work would be quicklv and 
easily done. 

When I, today, stand and look out over the Lord's har- 
vest fields that are whitening to the harvest, when I consider 
the infinite value of this harvest and the dreadful loss sus- 
tained when only one soul is lost, when I consider what a mul- 
titude of workers is needed to save this harvest, the question 
arises. From what source shall these laborers be supplied? 
The reply is. From the ranks of the Sunday school, the source 
from whence come all the best workers in the church. 

When, a few years ago, I visited some of the palaces of 
the monarchs of the Old World and beheld the beauty and 
glory of the mansions and of the furnishings, I asked myself 
the question. From what place have all these rich and beauti- 
ful things come? After a moment's reflection, the answer 
was, From the forests, from the mountains and from the 
mines of earth they have been collected and then shaped by 
the skillful hand of the artificer. With such thoughts I seemed 
almost confused at the possibilities of an intelligent race of 
16 241 



242 SUNDAY-SCHOOL WORK 

men. When I now pause and meditate upon the palace of 
the Eternal King, when I contemplate its beauty and the glory 
of its inhabitants, when I consider the multitudes of happy 
beings there, when I consider their robes, their crowns and 
their trophies of victory over the world, the flesh and the devil, 
I ask myself. How, how, were all these people gathered from 
so vile a world as this and brought into this holy place ? From 
whence came the army of workers needed in such a glorious 
harvest? The answer is, From the Sunday school came the 
laborers into the Lord's harvest. The Sunday school of today 
is preparing the laborers for tomorrow. Who is able to es- 
timate the loss to the church, and to heaven itself, if all the 
Sunday schools were closed this moment, never to be opened 
again? Who can estimate the gain to the church and to 
heaven, if we keep our Sunday schools going and growing 
until God shall close the drama of human life on this earth 
in which we live ? 

The importance of the Sunday school, then, must be 
measured by what the Sunday school is, by what it does, and 
by the methods used in its work. 

What the Sunday School Is. 

The Sunday school is the church of the Lord Jesus Christ 
at work in an organized effort, teaching the Gospel to the 
children, to the saved and to the unsaved. He who is able to 
estimate the value of the Word on the one hand and the value 
of a soul on the other hand, and then to add the two together 
into one sum, he is able to estimate the importance of the work 
of the Sunday school. 

The Sunday school is the means used by the church in 
getting into the home and in getting into the church ; it is the 
arm of the church which she uses to draw the home into her 
bosom for shelter and for succor. When we consider the 
more than a thousand Sunday schools and the tens of thou- 
sands of souls that assemble throughout the Broth- 
erhood each Lord's Day for the study of the Word 



I. B. TROUT 243 

of God, we are impressed with the importance of 
the Sunday school and its work. In no other way 
can the church reach both parent and child so readily as 
through the Sunday school. The work of the Sunday school 
is entirely unique, and its uniqueness establishes its importance. 
The Sunday school is unique in the fact that it is a blending of 
the church and the home in a manner not pos3ible in any other 
way. It partakes of the life of the church and of the home. 
The more complete this blending of the church and the home, 
the more perfect the work and the result of the Sunday school. 
Where the Sunday-school work is organized and carried on as 
it ought to be, there are few, if any, homes that cannot be taken 
for Christ. The power of the church as manifested in the 
Sunday school is able to drive the powers of darkness into ob- 
livion and to put the hosts of Satan to rout and confusion. So 
great is this power for good in the individual and the home, 
that business men throughout the country are beginning to 
want employees only who attend church and Sunday school. 
In years to come the Sunday school is destined to be the chief 
factor of the church in our civilization. It is bound to stand 
between the individual and the pitfalls of sin in such a way as 
to save him for Christ and the church. The power that keeps 
men from falling is the Word of God. Jesus Christ was 
armed with the Word. The Word was his only weapon of 
defense against Satan in the great temptation in the Wilder- 
ness. Nowhere else so well as in the Sunday school can we 
become armed with the Word. 

The Sunday school of today ranks second only to the pul- 
pit in its power to rescue souls for Christ. The Sunday school 
ranks second only to the Christian home in preparing hearers 
for the pulpit, it surpasses the home that is not fully Christian 
in this respect. Boys and girls, and men and women, who are 
properly taught in the Sunday school are easy and ready ma- 
terial for the pulpit to win to Christ. This is evidenced by the 
fact that over eighty per cent of our converts come from the 



244 SUNDAY-SCHOOL WORK 

ranks of the Sunday school. Surely the Sunday school pre- 
pares the hearers well for the sermon that follows during the 
hour of public services. The Sunday school can never equal 
or surpass the pulpit or the Christian home in power to win 
souls for Christ, for this no one should contend; but, next to 
these, it is the mightiest agency the church has at her com- 
mand. 

What the Sunday School Does. 

The importance of Sunday-school work is made quite ap- 
parent when we consider what it does. It is the only school 
the church has for teaching the Word of God to the people 
in general. In other words, it is the only Bible school that the 
church has. In this school the primary conceptions of truth of 
most of our preachers and officers of the church of the future 
will be formed. In this school we are training our future 
teachers of the Word. How great, then, is the importance of 
a school that exercises power in moulding the leaders of com- 
ing generations. Can we afford to pass such a school by, 
lightly ? Not only does the Sunday school prepare workers for 
the church in the home field, but it prepares our missionaries 
for the foreign field. Every missionary we have in the foreign 
field came from the ranks of the Sunday school. This need 
not seem strange to us, for there is no place in the world where 
the Spirit is more contagious than in the Sunday school. 

The study of the Sunday-school lesson, from day to day, 
and from week to week, establishes the habit of Bible reading 
and study, a most valuable habit to be cultivated. It is not 
possible to compute the value of a school that leads the child 
and the youth in Bible study through the years of growth and 
development into manhood and womanhood. There is no one 
thing that is so perfect a protection against temptation and 
its accompanying sin as a good store of Bible knowledge in 
the mind and heart. It is in the Sunday school that this store 
of truth can be, and is secured. 

Again, it would be hard to overestimate the value of the 



I. B. TROUT 245 

habit of giving time, talent and money to the Lord that is 
formed in the Sunday school. It costs money to carry on the 
various enterprises of the Lord as conducted by the church. 
In coming years it will cost more than it does now. We will 
have the givers, for the children are not only taught to give 
by bringing their money to Sunday school, but they are also 
taught to enjoy giving and the blessedness that comes to the 
giver. The children leam by experience that, " It is more 
blessed to give than to receive." We cannot measure the 
possibilities of the church when once her ranks are filled by 
men and women who have learned the joy of giving to the 
Lord and his work. 

In discussing the value of the Sunday-school work we 
must not pass without noticing the value of the habit of going 
to God's house to worship as it is formed by going to Sunday 
school each Sunday. Sunday-school scholars form the habit 
of church-going, a habit that many older people do not have. 
Many of the children of non-church-goers grow up to be 
church-goers because of the wholesome influence of the Sunday 
school. The record of many a soul is going to read as fol- 
lows : A member of the Cradle Roll when an infant ; a mem- 
ber of the Sunday school when a child ; later, a member of the 
church; and, finally, a citizen of the heavenly city, the New 
Jerusalem. And all of this because of the habit of church- 
going formed and fostered by the Sunday school. I would 
not have my children and myself miss the influences of the 
Sunday school for all the pleasures or the wealth that this 
world has to offer. Many of us can trace the noblest things in 
our lives back to their beginning in the Sunday school, where 
we were taught and influenced by some godly man or woman. 

Space forbids me to make more than mere mention of the 
habits of song, of sociability, and of mutual personal interest 
as developed in a well-regulated Sunday school. Selfishness 
and its kindred traits can find no speedier death than they meet 
in the Sunday school. In short, the Sunday school makes for 



248 SUNDAY-SCHOOL WORK 

all that Is noblest and best in the hearts and lives of its pupils. 
The beauty, the grace, the power and the glory of the church 
of Jesus Christ shines forth in boundless measure in the Sun- 
day school when it is properly organized and when it is wisely 
managed. The church never shows to better advantage than 
when, with prayer and zeal, she works in the Sunday school. 
As the sun shines forth in the morning, as master and king 
of a new day, so the church shines forth in the Sunday-school 
work, giving strength and form to new lives. It is the dawn- 
ing of a new day. 

The Methods Used in the Sunday School. 
The methods used to obtain such glorious results as those 
named above, are simple. Their power lies in their simplicity. 
The Sunday school must essentially adopt the method of its 
Master, all of whose ways and methods were marvelous be- 
cause of their simplicity. The grace of God never did, neither 
will it ever, operate through complicated machinery. The 
most marvelous thing about the life of the Prince of Teachers 
was, the straightforward simplicity with which he taught. 
Truth needs no decorations. The simple truth finds its way 
into the heart when all else fails. The method of the Sunday 
school, then, must be the teaching of the Word in the most 
natural and simple way. Jesus has showed us the power of 
the Word in his miracles. He has taught us how to present 
the Word in his grouping of materials in his parables. With 
the Word for our textbook, and with Jesus for our example as 
a teacher, the Sunday school ought to succeed without resort- 
ing to any cunningly-devised schemes or complicated methods 
for obtaining the desired results. The Sunday school should 
not allow anything to get between the child and the Word in 
such a way as to obscure his vision of the truth to be learned. 
The teacher should use the simplest possible way to lead the 
pupil to discover the great truths of the Gospel. It is remark- 
able how much the pupil, sometimes, learns in spite of the 



I. B. TROUT 247 

teacher ; it is more remarkable still how much he would learn 
if the teacher always knew the art of teaching, if the teacher 
would follow the example of the Great Teacher. 

God has furnished the textbook for the Sunday school. 
We must look out for teachers who are able to use this text- 
book to the best advantage. The church must select her most 
intelligent and godly men and women to teach. Intelligence 
and godliness must go hand-in-hand. There can be no good 
teaching in the Sunday school, save that which proceeds from 
a genuine Christian experience. The teacher must have a 
heart-knowledge of the subject as well as a head-knowledge, 
if he is to be a worthy teacher. Probably that is what Paul 
meant, when he said : " Though I speak with the tongues of 
men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as 
sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal." Unless the teacher has 
lived, and is living, the truths he is trying to teach, his teaching 
cannot be very effectual. The earlier there is a general 
awakening to this fact, the better it will be for the Sunday 
school in our church. The church must lay hold of her best 
men and women for her teachers. Having done this, she ought 
to provide a teacher-training course in keeping with all the 
New Testament doctrines. I am rejoiced with the fact that 
scores of teacher-training classes are being formed, but I 
lament the fact that we have no set of textbooks for these 
classes that will prepare them for teaching the whole Gospel. 
We ought to have a set of textbooks for these training classes, 
telling what to teach and how to teach it. Before our Sunday 
schools can reach the high standard that our church deserves, 
we must give more attention to pedagogy as it relates to Sun- 
day-school teaching. The greatest emphasis of all Sunday- 
school work must be placed on the quality of teaching done. 
Any failure in the teaching will necessarily prove fatal. Great 
as may be our need of a better system of lessons, far greater* 
still is our need of better teachers. The present system of 
lessons in the hands of competent teachers will accomplish 



248 SUNDAY-SCHOOL WORK 

wonders as 'compared with a perfect system of lessons in the 
hands of mediocre and incompetent teachers. 

We need more teachers of the type of Nehemiah and 
Ezra, — men who " read in the book in the law of God distinct- 
ly, and gave the sense, and caused them to understand the 
reading," (Neh. 8:8). After all, it is the Word of God in its 
purity, applied to the soul, that saves it from sin. " The law of 
the Lord is perfect, converting the soul," (Psa. 19: 7). Of 
Ezra it is said, that he " had prepared his heart to seek the 
law of the Lord, and to do it, and to teach in Israel statutes 
and judgments." (Ezra 7: 10). Ezra possessed the three 
fundamentals of a good teacher: Consecration, knowledge, 
and obedience. When we make these the requirements of our 
Sunday-school teachers, our work will prosper greatly. The 
importance of the Sunday-school work demands, that we have 
consecrated teachers, well-informed teachers with a Christian 
experience. 

I have but briefly outlined the importance of the Sunday- 
school work. Its full importance can never be estimated in 
this world, much less can it be known here. It is not to be 
determined by the mathematics of earth. It can only be com- 
piled by the mathematics of heaven. It is only he who sits 
on his eternal throne in glory that can know the full impor- 
tance of this great work of teaching the Word of God to the 
children of men. Not until we appear before the great white 
throne and there see, with a new and heavenly vision, the great 
multitudes that have been led to God through the efforts of 
the faithful Sunday-school workers, will we know the real 
importance of the glorious work in which it is our happy privi- 
lege to engage. God, bless the Sunday-school work. God, bless 
the Sunday-school workers. 




Elizabeth Myer 



Part Two 

The Growth of the Sunday-School Movement 
in the Brethren Church 

By Elizabeth Myer 

Before entering upon the discussion of this question, we 
deem it our duty and pleasure to express our appreciation and 
gratitude to those who have so kindly assisted us in gathering 
data and information, and whose liberal help has made the 
preparation of this paper possible. We find our thought well 
expressed in the words of Bro. J. H. Moore, who in the in- 
troduction to Bro. Brumbaugh's History of the Brethren 
says : " To write the history of a religious movement, fol- 
lowing it through all its stages of growth, is no ordinary 
task, though all the data pertaining to the movement lie easy ot 
access. But when the material must be taken from the forest 
and then reduced to shape so as to make it the source of reli- 
able information, the task becomes the more difficult." And 
then again, as Bro. M. G. Brumbaugh himself says, " History 
at best is a beggarly gleaner in a field where death has 
gathered a bountiful harvest." Death has sealed the lips of 
many who could have spoken, and stilled the hand of many 
who might have written the story of the growth of the Sun- 
day-school movement. With this introduction we hasten to a 
discussion of the question at hand. 

From Bro. M. G. Brumbaugh's article entitled The Be- 
ginnings of the Sunday School we quote the following: 

The great reforms in religion not only gave rise to new sects, 
but also produced a complete separation of church and educa- 
tion in those countries in which civic freedom was won. Thus 
in France and in America, at least, the control of education passed 

249 



250 GROWTH OF THE SUNDAY SCHOOL 

from the Church to the State. This resulted in secular education, 
where formerly religious education prevailed. The training of 
the individual for life in the State, supplanted training for life 
hereafter. This new conception of education has had immense 
support because of sectarian jealousies and because of the doctrine 
of freedom of conscience as an integral part of the idea of personal 
liberty. 

This doctrine of personal liberty, especially in all matters 
of creed, formed its full expression in the teachings of Wm. Penn, 
who was, by reason of his non-conformist principles, in advance 
of his times. The same is true of the German Baptist Brethren. 
They had no traditions to modify, no institutions to overthrow. 
They came with a singleness of purpose into advanced movements 
upon questions affecting the relation of the individual to secular 
institutions. Their doctrines compelled a thorough study of the 
Bible and a zealous concern for the training of their children. 
The early church was tremendously concerned in the education 
of her youth in all matters of religious faith and doctrine. Thus 
we find as early as 1738 the mother church of America at German- 
town was regularly maintaining a Sunday afternoon service or 
meeting for young people. This meeting was designed primarily 
for the unmarried members, and was an open forum for the dis- 
cussion of religious questions. The Bible was the only text used. 
Later on, in 1744, this meeting included, if it did not from the 
first, all the young persons whose parents were members. 

In 1744, Christopher Saur (Sower) printed 381 tickets — on 
each of which was found a quotation from the Bible and a stanza 
of religious poetry by George Tersteegen. Dr. Seidensticker says 
these tickets were drawn by pious persons and memorized. 

This may be true, but the great-grandson of the 
publisher, Mr. Chas. G. Saur, declared to Bro. Brumbaugh 
that they were also used as Sunday-school tickets. Others 
also have testified to this use. Recently Bro. Brumbaugh 
made the discovery that a set in exact duplicate of the Saur 
set was printed later at Ephrata. This latter set is in Bro. 
Brumbaugh's library. 

Bro. J. G. Royer on his sixty-seventh birthday, received as 
a birthday present to put among his relics, seventeen of Saur's 
Sunday-school cards printed about 1735. They were given to 



ELIZABETH MYER 251 

him by Sister Elizabeth Ulery of Claypool, Indiana, now 
eighty-nine years old. She received them from her father, 
Jacob Swihart, who had received them from his father, 
Gabriel Swihart, who died in 1824 at a ripe old age. 

The leader of the Young People's Meeting in Germantown 
was Ludwig Hoecker. Later on in 1739 he removed to Ephrata; 
and at this place, in 1749, a schoolhouse named Succoth was erected 
for his use. Here he established a Sunday school in conformity 
with the meeting he conducted at Germantown. It is, therefore, 
correct to claim that the German Baptist Brethren founded Sun- 
day schools nearly fory years before Robert Raikes began his 
laudable work in England. Until some one can show Sunday-school 
activity prior to 1738 the German Baptist Brethren — the pioneers 
in German and American printing — may claim the honor of found- 
ing this great and beneficent agency for the promotion of God's 
glory and a knowledge of his will to the young. 

Bro. Brumbaugh in his remarks on the Sunday-school 
question, further says: — (p. 464, History of the Brethren) 
" That this pioneer activity should have been adandoned is 
as inexplicable as the obstinacy with which a few still oppose 
the Sunday schools on the ground that they are innovations." 

Though the good results of the Sunday school are man- 
ifest everywhere, today, notwithstanding the opposition which 
Sunday-school workers were obliged to face, yet we believe 
that some of our old brethren were sincere in their opposition, 
because of a righteous fear concerning the effects of this 
work. Bro. J. G. Royer thinks they were not opposed to 
Sunday school because the Scriptures were taught there, 
but they feared that it would prove a means of releasing par- 
ents from a sense of their responsibility for the religious in- 
struction and care of their own children; and that as a result 
of this tendency, the work and influence of the Sunday school 
would be liable to bear adversely on the family, which was 
meant to be God's primal training agency for the human race. 
The divine injunction to parents is — Deut. 6: 6, 7; 32: 46, 47: 

"And these words which I commanded thee this day, shall 



252 GROWTH OF THE SUNDAY SCHOOL 

be in thine heart :And thou shalt teach them diligently unto 
thy children and thou shalt talk of them when thou sittest 
in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way,and when 
thou liest down, and when thou risest up. 

"And he said unto them, Set your hearts unto all the words 
which I testify among you this day, which ye shall command 
your children to observe to do, all the words of this law. 
For it is not a vain thing for you ; because it is your life and 
through this thing ye shall prolong your days in the land, 
whither ye go over Jordan to possess it." 

The home thus ordained by God must not be hindered in its 
mission, nor can it safely be rivalled or slighted. The Sim- 
day school must prove its cooperation with the family, or 
yield its claim to divine authority (1 Cor. 4: 15; Rom. 8: 28). 
It would not be right to ignore this fear of our early Brethren, 
for it is only too well founded. It is not true that there are 
in the Brethren's Church today, members who are enthusias- 
tic Sunday-school workers, yet neglect the teaching of the 
Scriptures in their homes ? What a pity that in some localities, 
Brethren's children come to Sunday school without having 
even studied the lesson! Pardon this personal reference, but 
we can truly say that our knowledge of the Bible was greatly 
enhanced through its use in family worship in our home and 
through studying the Sunday-school lessons during the last 
fourteen years in which we were allowed to hold a Sunday 
school in our home district, the Conestoga congregation. 

This sincere fear which led our early brethren to oppose 
the Sunday school, may have been one of the reasons why the 
work lagged and, in some sections, was utterly abandoned. 
Another reason, perhaps, was the lack of a required number of 
competent, enlightened, active brethren and sisters in a single 
community, during the pioneer period of church development, 
to carry for^vard the movement begun at Germantown. 

We gather from history that our early brethren such as 
Alexander Mack, Christopher Sower, Peter Becker, Peter 



ELIZABETH MYER 253 

Keiser and others were noted for their education and intelli- 
gence ; but the church, during the early years of the nineteenth 
century, seemed to degenerate along educational lines, and 
we lost our reputation. It seems that our brethren not only be- 
came indifferent to their privileges, but a number of them 
stood in opposition to all educational accomplishments beyond 
that of the ability to read the Bible. H. R. Holsinger in his 
History of the Tunkers and the Brethren Church says that a 
large majority of the members of the German Baptist Church 
are unfamiliar with the enterprise and ability of the fathers 
during the first twenty years of their existence. The reason 
for such ignorance must be attributed to the indifference of 
the lukewarm period, dating from about 1790 to 1850. Dur- 
ing this fallow period or years of lukewarmness in the Breth- 
ren Church, we believe there were numbers here and there 
among the different congregations who felt the need of more 
aggressive work. There were, we believe, zealous, devout 
brethren, — fathers and mothers, and others — whose religious 
fervor was caged, as it were, behind doors and bars of miscon- 
ceived opinions on the Sunday-school question. They looked 
out upon the hills and valleys of God's vineyard and lamented 
with tears the fact that there were so few workers there. 
There were children whose religious education was neglected, 
and there were no Sunday schools to give them the education 
neglected in their homes. We believe that many went to 
their graves with saddened, or perhaps broken hearts, be- 
cause some of their offspring, their own dear sons and daugh- 
ters, having a zeal for the Lord's cause, anxious to engage in 
the Sunday-school work, thus glorifying God by teaching 
his word to the unsaved, were opposed in their desires; and 
because of this, severed their connection with the church of 
their fathers and united with other churches. How many of 
you assembled here today could cite us instances to prove the 
statement just made. We lament the fact that our native 
church, the Conestoga congregation, one of the earliest or- 



254 GROWTH OF THE SUNDAY SCHOOL 

ganized churches in America, had no Sunday school when we 
boys and girls were small. A sister now in California, while 
living at home in the Conestoga church, plead for Sunday 
schools. The Sunday-school query came up year after year 
in our council meetings, but we were not granted permission to 
open one until the spring of 1894. The writer of this paper 
once offered in council meeting, as an argument in favor of 
Sunday schools the following : " Who will be responsible for 
those who are led into other Sunday schools and join other 
churches during the years in which our church will not sanction 
the work ? The Scriptures say, * Woe t o them that are 
at ease in Zion/ " Amos 6. 

About the year 1850 began the transition period, or spirit 
of growth along educational and religious lines in different 
congregations. A number of causes conspired to break down 
the bars of ignorance, fear, and misconceived notions, and 
the doors of the cage gradually opened. The workers were 
allowed to open Sunday schools and thus gather into the 
fold those who were going astray. Among the causes which 
brought about this transition were: the earnest prayers of de- 
vout Christians, the establishing of schools for higher ed- 
ucation, the influence of union Sunday schools in which some 
of our members took part, and the publication by our Brethren 
of a monthly paper — The Gospel Visitor — in 1851. 

That our Brethren early took part in union Sunday schools 
is proven by the following query found in the Gospel Visitor of 
August, 1852, page 59: "Have Christians a right according 
to the Gospel, to take part in conducting a Union Sunday 
School, in the capacity of teacher or officer of the same, making 
contributions thereto," etc. For answer to this query see Vol. 
2, p. 130. 

That there were those among our early Brethren who 
were most earnestly concerned about teaching children the 
Word of God, is proved by the excellent paper passed by An- 
nual Meeting in 1879 which reads as follows: 



ELIZABETH MYER 255 

Art. 2, 1789. — Inasmuch as many of our children and young 
people fall into a coarse life, and a great occasion of it seems to 
be there is not sufficient diligence used in instructing the chil- 
dren according to the Word of the Lord given by Moses in Deut. 
6: 7, where we read: "And thou shalt teach them (these words 
which I command thee this day) diligently unto thy children, and 
shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thy house, and when thou 
walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou 
risest up:" and also the apostle Paul says (Eph. 6: 4) that parents 
should "bring them (their children) up in the nurture and ad- 
monition of the Lord:" it is the opinion (and advice) that there 
should be used more diligence to instruct our dear youth and chil- 
dren in the Word of Truth to their salvation, and that it is the 
special duty of the dear parents, as v/^ell as of pastors and teach- 
ers, to be engaged herein, inasmuch as the apostle teaches, " Feed 
the flock of God which is among you, taking the oversight there- 
of." 1 Pet. 5: 2. And, inasmuch as the children of the faithful 
belong to the flock of Christ, just as naturally as the lambs be- 
long to the flock of sheep; and, inasmuch as the Word can be 
brought nearer to the hearts of children in a simple conversation 
or catechisation, or however it may be called, than otherwise in 
a long sermon, so that they apprehend the Word of Divine 
Truth, believe in Jesus, and accept his doctrine and command- 
ments and walk therein to their eternal salvation — hence we ad- 
monish in heartfelt and humble love all our, in God, much beloved 
fellow-members, dear fathers and mothers of families, as also 
pastors and teachers, our, in God, much beloved fellow-laborers, 
in the dear and worthy name of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has 
given himself unto death for us, that we should die to ourselves, 
and live to him forever, that they would use all possible diligence 
that our dear youth might be provoked to love God, and appreci- 
ate his Word from their childhood. Do not spare any labor and 
toil to convince them by our teaching and by our life, not after 
the manner which is almost too common nowadays, where the 
young are made to learn something by heart, and then to rehearse 
it in a light, thoughtless manner, and then are permitted to go on 
in a life as thoughtless as before — but that they may give them- 
selves to God in an earnest life. The great Rewarder of all good 
will undoubtedly remunerate you; for those that have done right 
shall live forever, and the Lord is their reward, and the Most 
High provides for them; they will receive a glorious kingdom and 
a beautiful crown from the hand of the Lord. 



256 GROWTH OF THE SUNDAY SCHOOL 

In 1838 the following query was presented to Annual 
Meeting : 

Whether it be right for members to take part in Sunday 
Schools, Class Meeting, and the like. Ans. — Considered most ad- 
visable to take no part in such like things. 

1789 advises in favor; 1838 advises against Sunday- 
schools; but 19 years later, in 1857, we have this query 
recorded : 

How is it considered for brethren to have Sabbath schools 
conducted by the brethren? Ans. — Inasmuch as we are com- 
manded to bring up our children in the nurture and admonition of 
the Lord, we know of no scripture which condemns Sabbath 
schools if conducted in Gospel order, and if they are made the 
means of teaching scholars a knowledge of the Scriptures. 

First article sanctioning Sunday schools. 
Art. 31. — Will the brethren at Annual Meeting consider it 
right to establish Sunday schools, and if they do consider it right, 
will they also consider it right for members of the church and 
their children to attend Sunday-school celebrations? Ans. — 
*' We consider it right to have Sunday schools if conducted by 
Brethren, but not to have celebrations. 

Let us notice the religious zeal manifesting itself in the 
organization of 

Early Sunday Schools. 

1830. — At Oley, Pennsylvania, there was a church as 
early as 1730. There was a large membership from 1730 to 
1745. About 1832 this section was so nearly depopulated by 
members moving out that no preaching services were held. 
But they allowed a union Sunday school. This Sunday school 
was kept up every summer for years, and outside of Reading 
is the oldest in Berks County. This information is taken 
from a clipping of an old newspaper, which is now in the 
hands of Bro. J. G. Royer. 

Sister Howe, mother of Bro. W. M. Howe, who was then 
a young matron, informs us that in 1856 a Union Sunday 
school was organized in Mifflin County, five miles from Lewis- 
town. The first superintendent, Andrew Blymire, a Lewis-. 



ELIZABETH MYER 257 

town merchant, was the Lutheran, the energetic Sunday- 
school worker to whom Bro. Joseph Amick refers in a letter 
from which we shall quote. This Sunday school was held 
in an old schoolhouse at first, and the Brethren helped in the 
work. Later, when a meetinghouse was built the Sunday 
school was held in it, and that community has never passed 
a year without a Sunday school. Bro. Amick writes that 
he was born in Mifflin County, Pennsylvania, and that early 
in the 50's a Sunday school was held where the Dry Valley 
churchhouse is now located. Bro. Amick says: 

About one hundred or more young people, not members, 
but mostly members' children met in the schoolhouse, our place 
for holding church, to organize a Sunday school. There was not 
a brother or sister present to offer a prayer, so we had no open- 
ing prayer. We formed classes and used the New Testament for 
our textbook. There were good brethren in sympathy with us, — 
my uncle Jacob Mohler, father of John M. Mohler, Abraham Roth- 
rock, my mother's brother, Wm. Howe, father of W. M. Howe, 
and others. We young folks appointed a committee to wait on 
these brethren, inviting them to meet with us, but for the sake 
of peace, especially in the case of a brother minister who lived 
some distance away and was much opposed to Sunday-school 
work, they declined. I then invited a young man, a Lutheran, an 
energetic Sunday-school worker from Lewistown, three miles dis- 
tant, to come out and superintend for us, which he did for two 
summers or more. In the meantime the brother who opposed 
the work was called away by death, and then the members began 
to attend. During the following winter, we met as a Bible class 
at the homes of those who were in sympathy with the Sunday- 
school work. 

In the spring of 1857, Bro. Amick became a member of 
the Brethren Church, his conversion being the fruits of 
this union Sunday school; and he it is who wrote the Annual 
Meeting query quoted above, — Art. 11, 1857. After a church- 
house was built this Sunday school was removed to the base- 
ment, there being no attempt made to occupy the main au- 
dience room, as there was still some opposition in the other 
end of the district. About this time the Brethren's children 



258 GROWTH OF THE SUNDAY SCHOOL 

came to the church by the score. In a few years the Sunday 
school had grown so large that it became necessary to use the 
whole of the basement and audience room. The result was 
a live church, old and young working together in harmony, 
and carrying with them wherever they settled, strong Sun- 
day-school sentiment. Bro. Amick afterwards moved to the 
West, and sometimes he and Bro. J. G. Royer went as far as 
eight miles to organize and attend Sunday school. 

1845. — Bro. Hiram Gibble of Manheim, Lancaster County, 
Pennsylvania, says that as early as 1845, a Sunday school was 
held in a log, weatherboarded schoolhouse, 24 ft. square, built 
in 1845, before the Free School System was established. The 
house is still standing, and is now used as a dwelling house. 
Bro. Jonas Leopold, the organizer of this Sunday school, who 
died just a year or so ago, moved into the White Oak District 
from Chester County. He did farming and taught school at the 
same time during the winter, and his wife taught summer 
school in the house described above. He had a large Sunday 
school. Bro. Gibble was then a little boy perhaps not more than 
five years old, and says he remembers well how much he en- 
joyed their Sunday-school work. There were classes both in 
German and English. All the little boys and girls came bare- 
footed and in everyday clothes, though clean. In this Sunday 
school, tickets and cards were used, and pamphlets or small 
books were given to the children to read. Bro. Gibble has seen 
one of these in the hands of a sister still living. This Sunday 
school continued while Bro. Leopold lived in the district, but 
on his return to Chester County, the Sunday school closed, and 
the White Oak congregation was without Sunday school until 
four or five years ago. 

1853. — Philadelphia. Sister Mary Geiger informs us that 
her husband. Dr. H. Geiger was elected to the ministry in 
Philadelphia, in 1853. Soon after his election Bro. Geiger said 
unless they would be allowed to start a Sunday school and 
thus keep the young people in the church, he would not preach. 



ELIZABETH MYER 259 

One of their elders, Bro. Righter was opposed to Sunday 
schools, while the other elder, Bro. Fox, favored it, but did not 
like to go against Bro. Righter's views. Bro. J. H. Umstead 
was consulted, and he said, " Go ahead, and try it ; if it does 
not work well, you can give it up." So they organized a 
Sunday school with Dr. Geiger as superintendent. The second 
superintendent was Bro. Price, who is now in his ninety-first 
year. This Sunday school has been in existence ever since, 
and today has 300 names on its list, about 250 being regular 
attendants. The following letter, written by Bro. J. S. Thomas, 
superintendent of the Philadelphia Sunday school, and pub- 
lished in the Christian Family Companion on Feb. 19, 1867, 
is very interesting history to the Sunday-school worker. It 
reads as follows: 

Brother Holsinger: — Please indulge me in a few lines in the 
" Companion," relative to our little Sabbath school in Philadelphia. 

At nine o'clock Sabbath morning we gather within the walls 
of our humble little meetinghouse, on Crown St., below Callow- 
hill, and there assemble in the capacity of a Sabbath school. It 
is truly a soul-refreshing time to those of us who meet with the 
lambs of the flock for the purpose of giving instructions and plant- 
ing in their young and tender hearts the germ of righteousness, 
the written Word of the true and living God. And it makes our 
hearts glad to behold their smiling faces as they enter the church 
door, and to hear the patter of little feet as they march to their 
accustomed seats, and cluster around their devoted teachers to 
lisp the name of Jesus. And when they swell the chorus with 
their gladsome hallelujas unto the Almighty God, the Everlast- 
ing King, methinks their sweet voices like holy incense would 
soar above the clouds, and far beyond the stars, until they pene- 
trate the very portals of heaven, gently greeting the ear of Sover- 
eign mercy whilst the great God himself smiles upon us and 
blesses our labors in their behalf. 

We have, in our school, one darling little girl four years of 
age, a striking picture of innocence and purity. We call her lit- 
tle Ada. She commits to memory numerous passages of Scripture, 
and frequently whole Psalms, which she recites to her teacher, 
Sabbath after Sabbath. 

We indeed feel that God is working with, and assisting us. 



260 GROWTH OF THE SUNDAY SCHOOL 

in this great and noble work. When we view the children sur- 
rounding their teachers, eagerly catching each word as it falls 
from their lips, — when we hear them singing their sweet songs 
of thanksgiving; and when we think of many young and tender 
hearts that have, through the instrumentalities of our Sabbath 
school, become members of our congregation, and are now try- 
ing to follow in the footsteps of our Savior, I say when we behold 
these facts, and view their glorious results, we are led to exclaim 
from the very altar of our hearts, Thank God for the Sabbath 
school! 

Among those who have labored with us for the past nine 
years, and who still continue to work for the cause with un- 
abated love and zeal, we would notice Brethren Fry, Eisenhower, 
Hunshburger, and Evans; Sisters Worrell, Hammer, Lynd and 
Roberts. And we now have assisting us many of our young breth- 
ren and sisters, who have lately enlisted beneath the banner of 
King Emmanuel. We feel truly thankful for their hearty co- 
operation and zeal in the cause. 

Permit me to say to the Brethren throughout the land, if 
you have no Sabbath school attached to your place of worship, 
proceed at once to organize one. Delay not. Sabbath schools, 
if properly conducted, will become a great and mighty lever in 
the advancement of the church of Christ. Greater glory will en- 
shrine us. Many souls will be made happier, and many more find 
" Sweet rest in Heaven." And if it be our happy lot when time 
is no more, to mingle with the blood-washed throng, then you 
may meet the little lambs you have led to the Savior whilst he-re 
below. Then they will sing you sweeter songs of gladness, when 
Jesus shall gather them all in his arms, and call them blessed 
forever. 

" Gather them in, gather them in, 
Gather the children in 
Gather them into the Sunday school." 

Let not this glorious means of bringing souls to Christ pass 
by unheeded. May the day soon dawn when all the meeting- 
houses, and places of worship of the Brethren, will have a Sun- 
day school attached. And my humble prayer to the great God 
is that he may put it in the hearts of our brethren and sisters 
everywhere to gather little wanderers in and point them to Christ 
when you will soon see the happy result, and with your brethren 
and sisters in Philadelphia, thank God for the Sabbath school. 



ELIZABETH MYER 261 

" Gather them in with a Christian love, 
Gather them in, gather them in. 
Gather them in for the Church above, 
Gather, gather them in." 

1856.— Bro. J. G. Royer says that the Buffalo Valley 
church in Union County, Pennsylvania, organized a Sunday 
school in the spring of 1856. This Sunday school was held in a 
schoolhouse, the congregation not having a meetinghouse. 
Bro. John Boganrief, a deacon, was the Superintendent, who 
was then eighteen years old. Bro. Royer was teacher of a 
class of boys, and this was the beginning of his Sunday-school 
work. Bro. Royer has reached his three score years and 
ten, hence has been a Sunday-school worker for fifty-two 
years. 

1865. — About 1865 the American Sunday School Asso- 
ciation of Philadelphia sent out a Mr. Hicks, whose work it 
was to organize union Sunday schools in different parts of 
Pennsylvania. This gentleman came to Conewago township 
in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania. Those of the neighborhood 
who were interested in Sunday-school work met in Hoffer's 
meetinghouse located about three and one-half miles north 
of EHzabethtown, and the result was the organization of a 
union Sunday school with Bro. Wm. Hertzler, father of Eld. 
S. H. Hertzler, as Superintendent. In about a year after- 
ward this Sunday school was mainly in the hands of the 
Brethren. This was, perhaps, the first Sunday school held in 
the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, in a Brethren's meet- 
inghouse. A daughter-in-law of Eld. Wm. Hertzler's testifies 
that this was the means through which the seeds of religion 
were sown into her heart. Here is where she first learned 
to pray. She has a Bible and a library book which she re- 
ceived here when about eight years old and prizes them 
very highly. Her mother was at one time a Catholic and 
her father a Lutheran, in principle if not in faith, while she, 
(their daughter) now Mrs. Isaac Hertzler, is one of the 



GROWTH OF THE SUNDAY SCHOOL 

staunch members of the EHzabethtown church, in Lancaster 
County, Pennsylvania. 

The Sunday school was known as the Conewago Un- 
ion Sunday School, was largely attended, and heaven alone 
will disclose the results of its work. Through some oppo- 
sition the Sunday school was removed from the meeting- 
house to the Hertzler's schoolhouse, back again to the meet- 
inghouse and finally abandoned. 

1868. — The Green Tree church, Pennsylvania, has had 
a Sunday school ever since 1868, with Bro. Joseph Fitzwater 
as Superintendent. Bro. Fitzwater is a nephew of Bro. John 
Umstead. It is said that he was the organizer of the Sunday 
school at this place, and has held this position without in- 
terruption for the past forty years. 

1878. — In 1878 the Chiques church in Lancaster County, 
Pennsylvania, through the influence of Eld. S. R. Zug, granted 
permission to those favorable to Sunday-school work to open a 
Sunday school in the schoolhouse, not allowing the church to be 
used for this purpose. In 1879, the Sunday-school sentiment 
had increased, and the use of the church was granted to Sun- 
day-school workers. This was, perhaps, the first modern 
Sunday school in the Brethren Church in Lancaster County. 
Eld. Zug and his co-laborers first met with much opposition, 
but through constant and persistent effort, have won many 
over to the Sunday-school cause. 

Daniel Hays from Broadway, Virginia, writes: 

"The earliest Sunday school organized in the regular way 
by the Brethren was in the year 1879, in the new churchhouse 
in Timberville, Rockingham County, Virginia, it being the first 
regularly organized Sunday school in the Second District of 
Virginia. Bro. John F. Driver was the Superintendent. There 
were six to eight teachers to as many classes, with 100 to 150 
scholars in attendance. Bibles and Testaments were used, and for 
the little folks, primers of any kind that they could get. There 
were no helps nor question books. The Superintendent led the 
singing and it was good. Now there are Sunday schools in every 



ELIZABETH MYER 263 

church and neighborhood, in Virginia, where there are Brethren 
to conduct them. Around Timberville where the first Sunday 
school was held, you may count ten or more within a radius of 
six miles. 

Before the Civil War, back in the 50's, where there was 
a leader, Sunday schools were held, but without much system. 
Persons would attend and stop when they pleased. Some- 
times the Brethren's children would attend, but they were not 
interested. I remember father took a Sunday-school paper 
called the American Messenger. 

The following report is taken from the Brethren's Almanac 
of 1876, published by Brethren H. B. Brumbaugh and James 
Quinter. It reads: 

We suppose it will startle some of our Brethren when we tell 
them that the first Sunday school ever introduced, was started 
by the Brethren, but facts are stubborn things, when we wish to 
avoid them, but in this one, we glory as it will effectually remove 
that imaginary stigma cast upon the institution by saying, " In 
this thing, like many others, we are patterning after the world." 
Some of our early Brethren manifested a zeal and spirit of enter- 
prise that ought now to put us to shame when we see and learn 
how little we have done and are now doing. 

The great "American Encyclopedia," in its account of the 
"Brethren" or " Dunker " Church, says: — "In the year 1740, or 
about that time, forty years before the present general system of 
Sunday-school instruction was introduced by Robert Raikes, Lud- 
wig Hoecker, (Bro. Obed), established a Sunday school which was 
maintained upwards of thirty years." 

This makes about 136 years since Sunday schools were intro- 
duced among the Brethren, and where are we today? 

We made an effort to get some statistics to show the nature 
and extent of the Sunday-school work in the church, but to a very 
great extent failed, as but a few, out of the many schools that we 
know of, reported, but as this is our " Centennial " year of Ameri- 
can Independence we will give what we have, to show our Breth- 
ren a hundred years hence, that we had not altogether forgotten 
the labors of those who lived so long a time before us. The fol- 
lowing is an abridgment of the reports received: 
The Panther Creek church Sunday school, Roanoke County, 



264 GROWTH OF THE SUNDAY SCHOOL 

Illinois, was organized in 1873, and now shows the following 

attendance: 

Average. 

Scholars 65 

Teachers 12 

Officers 4 

Visitors 34 

Total Attendance 115 

J. L. Brown, Secretary. 

Spring Mount church Sunday school, organized December 13, 
1874, with the following attendance: 

Scholars 99 

Teachers 8 

Officers 8 

Total 115 

Isaac Cox, Secretary. 

The Beach Grove Sunday school, Chippewa church, Wayne 
County, Ohio, was organized April 30, 1871, and shows the follow- 
ing attendance: 

Whole Attendance 101 

The school seems to be in a promising condition with a general 
good interest by all in attendance. 

B. F. Bauser, Superintendent. 

Ogans Creek Sunday school, Wabash County, Indiana, or- 
ganized 3rd Sunday in May, 1875. 

There are about fifty scholars in regular attendance. All are 
pleased with the school and are encouraged to continue the work, 
as seven of the scholars have resolved to serve the Lord in their 
youth. One brother says: "Before, my boys spent their spare 
time in play and quarreling, but now it is spent in reading their 
lessons, their papers, and in committing their verses." 

North Manchester, Ind. By Secretary. 

The Brethren's Sunday school in Xew Jersey, near Croton, 
Hunterdon Countj^ was organized in May, 1873, with Elder R. 
Hyde, Superintendent, and at present shows an average attendance 
of about thirty scholars and ten visitors, making a total average 
of forty, besides teachers and officers. We take thirty copies of 



ELIZABETH MYER 265 

the Children's Paper, and six of our scholars have come into the 
fold within the present year. A. S. Chamberlain. 

The Leamersville church Sunday school, Blair County, Penn- 
sylvania, was organized May 2, 1875. The school started with 
twenty-three male, and thirteen female pupils, and the average 
attendance now is twenty-four males and eighteen females, mak- 
ing a total average of forty-two besides officers and visitors. The 
school, so far, is growing in favor in and out of the church and is 
considered a decided success. 

Officers: Eld. Jas. A. Sell, Superintendent; D. D. Sell, As- 
sistant; Simon Sell, Secretary. 

We give this only as a beginnig, hoping that by another year 
we may receive statistics from all the schools in the Brotherhood. 

Written by H. B. B. 

Bro. Ira Holsopple in an excellent report informs us that 
the Sunday school associated with the Coventry Brethren church, 
was organized about the year 1845, with Mr. James Freese as super- 
intendent and Sisters Elizabeth Harley and Mary Willaver as 
teachers, all of whom are dead. At least two pupils, Mrs. Newlin 
and Mrs. Wills, of Pottstown, are still living. Owing to the fact 
that many of the members opposed Sunday school, the organiza- 
tion was effected and carried on in the schoolhouse across the 
road from the church. Through the efforts of Eld. John Price, 
Sr., the school was brought into the church. This being the second 
effort to have it in the church building. Eld. Price had all the 
official members pledge themselves never to sustain any movement 
that might tend to take it away. Bro. Owen Rothrock soon suc- 
ceeded Mr. Freese. Then Bro. Jonas Leopold (same brother who 
taught at Manheim about 1845) followed who held the position 
until about the year 1865, when he was followed by Eld. John 
Harley who acted as an efficient superintendent until 1892 when 
he resigned on account of age and infirmities. From the very 
beginning the school was active and the church prosperous. The 
growth and activity of the church owes much to the Sunday-school 
work. For about fifteen years the Brethren's literature has been 
used. Each month one missionary collection is taken which 
amounts to from $25 to $35 per year. From the other offerings 
it sustains its own work besides making occasional appropria- 
tions to the general church expenses. We have Home Depart- 
ment (40 enrolled) also a Cradle Roll, (23 enrolled) and are about 
to organize a Teacher Training Class which will be effected this 



266 GROWTH OF THE SUNDAY SCHOOL 

week yet. A library was established some time prior to 1884, and 
an Executive Committee consisting of five persons were created 
July 12, 1891. The prospects for the school are good. Enroll- 
ment of the Sunday school now is about 170 pupils. 

Thus you notice that from 1844 there was a gradual 
growth in Sunday-school work, and that with this growth came 
strong opposition, and the peace of some of our Brethren 
was so much disturbed as to cause them in 1881 to with- 
draw from the church and organize for themselves a separate 
church. 

In a pamphlet published to vindicate themselves, they 
say: 

In 1857, Sunday schools were rather warranted, and in 1858, 
privilege was granted to hold lengthy revival meetings, and also 
high schools. These somewhat disturbed the peace of many breth- 
ren. Thus, when the order of the church was once broken, one 
innovation after another crept in among us, to the sorrow of many 
members. 

We are not sorry for the so-called " innovations " creep- 
ing in, but we are sorry for those who once could not, and 
today cannot, realize the great good that these different 
phases of educational and religious work have accomplished 
and are accomplishing for the cause of Christ today. 

It may be true that some of the early churches in which 
Sunday schools were first maintained have not kept In line 
with the principles of gospel plainness as interpreted by our 
Brotherhood In Annual Meeting, and so some thought 
the Sunday schools were partly to blame for this trouble. 
That this was an erroneous idea is proved by the great good 
that the Sunday school is doing for the church today. The 
fault was not in the Sunday school as an institution, but 
rather in the weaknesses of elders and ofBcials and Sun- 
day-school agitators in these churches who failed In practicing 
and teaching the principles of gospel plainness as interpreted 
by our Brethren. 

This state of affairs led to much opposition, especially 



ELIZABETH MYER 267 

in certain sections. Extracts from a letter written by a brother 
from Ephrata and published in The Family Companion, March 
26, 1867, will prove the above statements. They read as 
follows : 

Brethren, bear with me. It seems to me I see something 
very unbecoming and detrimental creeping gradually into our 
Brotherhood, which will certainly terminate in conformity with 
the fashionable and popular Christianity of these last and perilous 
and deceivable days, such as Sunday schools, paying preachers, 
high schools or colleges, etc., which is construed to show out a 
very good and Christian appearance, but Satan is at the head of 
it, if I am allowed to make the expression. Sunday school, in 
itself, if well conducted, may perhaps do no harm, but the root 
from which it sprung up, is the same root out of which the pres- 
ent ill-improved and fashionable spurious Christendom sprung. 
The design of Sunday schools and other institutions, in their 
origin was spurious, and cannot be trusted at the present time. 
I am now three score and two years old, in which time I have 
been superintendent of a Sunday school for six successive years, 
until I discovered the origin and intent of the deceitful hypocrisy, 
which caused me to shun and abhor all and every deceitful insti- 
tution and practice of carnal humanity. 

The fact that there were those who entertained such 
erroneous ideas is to be lamented, but we turn with glad 
hearts, to brighter pages of history. 

Bro. D. H. Zigler, in his History of the Brethren in 
Virginia, says: 

Shoulder to shoulder with other lines of endeavor for the 
Lord, stands the Sunday-school worker with Bible in hand. His 
mission is to gather the young and old alike, each Lord's Day, 
to instruct them in the ways of Truth. Among the churches in 
Virginia, can be found many enthusiastic Sunday-school workers, 
and it is impossible to estimate the great amount of good they 
accomplish for the church and humanity. The reader has already 
seen that, in principle, the Sunday-school instruction was used 
by some of the first Brethren who settled in Virginia, but subse- 
quent to this, for a time, Sunday schools were not held in favor 
by the churches. However, time has wrought a great change, 
and no church is considered fully equipped without a Sunday 



268 GROWTH OF THE SUNDAY SCHOOL 

school. The growth in this line of Christian work has been very 
marked during the last several decades. 

What is true of Virginia, is true of the Brotherhood in 
general. There are few, very few local churches existing to- 
day that do not have an organized Sunday school. But listen ! 
Bro. Galen B. Royer says that the enrollment of our schools 
is not over half of our membership as a church. Of the en- 
rollment a half or more are children, and others not in the 
church, leaving but a fourth of our members active in church 
work through the Sunday school. And as with rare exception 
no one can be a live member of the church without being 
in Sunday school, it shows a depressingly sad view of the 
membership of the church. 

Perhaps the growth is good considering the past, but 
there ought to be more efforts to quicken the membership. 
In a live church eighty to ninety per cent of the membership 
ought to be regular at Sunday school outside of the outsiders. 
What would that mean in Lancaster County? In Pennsyl- 
vania? In the Brotherhood? Not only would there be a 
quickened church and greater power, but many from the out- 
side would come to us because of our life and power. 

As a means of forwarding the Sunday-school work, An- 
nual Meeting, in 1896, provided for the appointment of a 
Sunday-school Advisory Committee whose duty it is to conduct 
a Sunday-school meeting in the Tabernacle at each Annual 
Meeting. This committee has held a Sunday-school meeting 
at every Annual Meeting since then for eleven or twelve 
years. At these meetings reports of the progress of the Sun- 
day-school work have been regularly read. All this has given 
great impetus to the work. 

The report for 1907 shows: 

Number of Sunday schools 1,131 

Enrollment 73,661 

Average Attendance 48,051 

Number of Conversions in a Single Year 2,760 



ELIZABETH MYER 269 

Today we have forty State District Sunday-school Secre- 
taries. 

Some local churches have their own Sunday-school ad- 
visory committees whose duties are to work up the Sunday- 
school interests, hold quarterly local Sunday-school meetings 
for the discussion of questions relating to Sunday-school work, 
and to organize outpost Sunday schools when necessary. The 
advisory committee of the Elizabethtown church have been 
conducting in the past six years three outpost Sunday schools 
besides the one held in the Brethren church in town. Through 
the advice of this committee the Elizabethtown church has 
granted permission to have a separate Primary Department 
of the Sunday school organized and results are encouraging. 

With all these forces at work today, with Jesus as our 
Captain, and with the Bible as our code of discipline for the 
thousands of soldiers in the mighty Sunday-school army, who 
can predict the great victories that shall be won over sin and 
Satan for Christ and his church in future years? 



Chapter Eleven 
The Missionary Work of tlie Church 




Galen Brown Royer 



Part One 
The Development of Missions in the Church 

By Galen B. Royer 

What if the first settlers of the Brethren in America 
did not reach out in mission work as does the church today! 
This is by no means an argument that they were anti-mis- 
sionary in heart and Hfe. They were few in number, Hmited 
in means, and confronting a big problem of occupation. Theirs 
was the formidable task right at their own door, and it is no 
wonder that there was no special effort in behalf of lands 
beyond them. 

This, too, they did. Though scattered and fighting battles 
alone they remained loyal to the Master and true to his cause. 
The location of a member in new territory rarely meant a re- 
lapsing into unbelief, but usually in a short time others about 
them believed, a congregation was formed and thus the faith 
was spread in a most effectual way. Why the church should 
degenerate from such high ideals and purposes as are clearly 
seen in educational and religious activities of the first cen- 
tury of great progress into one of greater anti-missionary 
as well as anti-educational sentiments, is a problem perhaps 
no one can solve. Let the mantle of charity and not harsh 
judgment be spread over this period, for during these dec- 
ades here and there was a member sensitive to the mute ap- 
peal of the unsaved about him, and the obligation of the Com- 
mander of the church militant upon him to ring out the clarion 
note of warning to those who did not go farther than their 
own doors. Not only did the world's needs stand out promi- 
nent in those pleas but the plain Scriptures were rehearsed time 
after time to them. The movement was gathering momentum 
\ 18 273 



274 DEVELOPMENT OF MISSIONS 

to such an extent that a committee previously appointed, com- 
posed of D. P. Saylor, John KHne, John Metzger and James 
Quinter, reported to the Annual Meeting of 1860 a very good 
plan for carrying on general mission work. But it did not pass 
the meeting and though repeated efforts were made to have it 
approved, this was never accomplished. 

Sentiment in favor of missions was gathering momentum 
rapidly, and had not the civil war of the sixties come upon the 
nation, organized mission work would have begun earlier than 
it did. That unfortunate conflict turned men's minds away 
from the world-wide evangelization to orie of unbrotherly 
struggle. 

Not until the eighties is there another effort set on foot. 
A General Mission Board was organized. The members were 
James Quinter of Pennsylvania, S. T. Bosserman of Ohio, 
James Leedy of Indiana, Enoch Eby of Illinois and Daniel 
Brubaker of Iowa. The Danish mission, hereafter described, 
was put in their care for four years. During the time they re- 
ceived $3,194.29 for mission work and $2,557.71 for building 
meetinghouses in that country, and $241.60 for other purposes. 
During the same period they collected $1,972.11 for Home 
Missions and such workers as M. M. Eshelman, James R. 
Gish, G. Hollinger, S. S. Mohler and J. W. Wilt were assisted 
as they went forth to preach the Gospel. 

In 1884, the plan in force not having been satisfactory, a 
new committee submitted, at the request of Conference, another 
for doing mission work. The new plan had two purposes, — 
preaching the Gospel and assisting in building meetinghouses. 
It recommended that each member give " one cent or more 
per week " for the support of the movement. The committee, 
known as the General Church Erection and Missionary Com- 
mittee, consisted of D. L. Miller of Illinois, who has served 
continuously to the present. He was its secretary and treas- 
urer till 1890, then continued treasurer till 1900, and then 
served as president, save one year until the present. Enoch 



GALEN B. ROYER 275 

Eby also served a number of terms and was its first president. 
C. P. Rowland, Daniel Vaniman and Samuel Riddlesba«rger 
complete the list. The last two named are with the redeemed 
over yonder. The first report of this committee was in 1885 
and shows work done in Denmark and Germany as well as 
different parts of the United States. Their disbursements for 
the entire year amounted to $3,552.09. About one seventh of 
the congregations supported general mission work that year. 
At that time no district was organized for district mission 
work. There were no district solicitors. Those were the days 
that the treasurer thought it of sufiicient importance when 
he received two or three letters in one day concerning mis- 
sions to make mention of it, and a total receipts of any one 
day looking towards a hundred dollars was a matter of unusual 
rejoicing. 

The Danish work was under good headway and needed 
the direction and care of the Committee. The districts were 
encouraged by assistance, and sentiment grew rapidly. The 
Committee met every three months and the subject of mis- 
sions was kept before the church through her regular periodi- 
cals. In 1887 Conference granted the Committee permission 
to solicit endowment. This met a hearty response in nearly 
every congregation in the Brotherhood, some contributing their 
thousands and many their fifties and more. Up to March 
31, 1908, or in twenty-one years, $503,294.19 has been laid on 
the altar of service for the church as endowment. This is a 
goodly sum, all invested, either in first-class farm mortgages 
or in the Brethren Publishing House, and the earnings there- 
from is a good income to the Committee. Really it represents 
those dead, yet working most effectually in the vineyard of 
the Lord. 

In 1893, the Committee thought it prudent to publish the 
Missionary Visitor as a special organ of its work. This 
periodical continued three years or till the close of 1896, when 
the needs of the church were sought to be supplied through 



276 DEVELOPMENT OF MISSIONS 

a page of the Gospel Messenger. This arrangement continued 
until June 1902, when, feeling the need of more 
space than the Messenger could spare and to appeal in ways 
not suitable to that paper, the Visitor was again issued and 
since has been a factor in the development of missionary senti- 
ment in the church. 

In 1894, the General Church Erection and Missionary 
Committee and the Brethren's Book and Tract Work were con- 
solidated and a new committee formed. This combined en- 
dowments, reduced expenses of supervision and direction, and 
greatly facilitated the mission work of the church. A sketch 
of the tract work to this point will be given a little later. 

In 1897, the Committee came into possession of the Breth- 
ren Publishing House to direct this all-important factor in the 
interests of the church. 

In 1898 the Committee decided to make its headquarters 
in Chicago, and legal papers to that effect were secured. The 
sub-committee sent to secure suitable rooms, discovered ex- 
penses so high that it reported not advisable to move there. 
It then took up the matter of new location and April 1, 1899, 
found the secretary located at Elgin, Illinois. During the sum- 
mer a new building was erected for its office and the Publish- 
ing House, and the latter moved the following September. 

In the last twenty-four years the General Missionary 
Committee has been permitted to distribute $665,222.57 for the 
church in mission work. The largest amount in any one year 
was in 1905-06, when nearly $70,000 was distributed. If 
the total distributions for missions, $665,222.57, the amount 
spent by the Book and Tract Work before consolidation, $22,- 
642.84, and the endowment, $503,294.19, be added, the total 
given to general missionary work and tract distribution 
reaches the sum of $1,191,159.69 for the twenty-four years. 

The General Board has been an important factor in 
Home Missions. Until organized into State District, it took 
care of the work in Arkansas, supported the work in Florida 



GALEN B. ROYER 277 

and Canada. It developed, or assisted in developing the 
churches in Baltimore, Washington, D. C, Brooklyn, N .Y., 
and Chicago, directly, as well as helped other cities through 
district boards. It rendered assistance to district boards in 
the States to the amount of $67,598.66. 

In addition, within this period, it has assisted in building 
280 meetinghouses in the Brotherhood, appropriating $54,- 
336.54. 

Its total assets on March 31, 1908, were $603,747.75. 

This is now its history in general outline. To better ap- 
preciate its labors, note brief mention of its various fields and 
avenues of endeavor. 

Book and Tract Work. 

As private efforts, tract distribution dates back as early 
as missionary sentiment. In 1885, however, a committee was 
appointed whose duty it was to solicit funds and publish ap- 
proved publications. The first committee consisted of S. W. 
Hoover, S. D. Royer, Adam Minnich, B. F. Miller, Jacob Hep- 
ner and Samuel Bock. During the existence of the organiza- 
tion, S. W. Hoover was its president and S. Bock its sec- 
retary-treasurer, save a few years in beginning when Bro. 
Hepner was treasurer. It had for its " object the dissemina- 
tion of the principles of the Gospel of Christ, through the dis- 
tribution of tracts and other publications, both in this and 
foreign countries." It provived for an Examining Committee 
and the first ones who served and did much to make the list 
of Brethren's tracts what they are from a teaching standpoint, 
were Enoch Eby, R. H. Miller, Landon West, B. F. Moomaw 
and S. S. Mohler. The first Annual Report was made to 
Conference of 1897, in which it is learned that $859.39 was 
expended and 44,600 tracts and publications sent out. Up to 
Conference of 1894 the Book and Tract Work expended $22,- 
642. 84 and distributed 1,745,000 tracts and publications. This 
added to what has been done since, makes a sliowing of $79,- 



27S DEVELOPMENT OF MISSIONS 

593.37 expended from the beginning in tracts and publica- 
tions. 

In 1894 the General Church Erection and Missionary 
Committee and the Brethren's Book and Tract Work were 
united under the name, General Missionary and Tract Com- 
mittee. Adding the expenditures preceding this consolida- 
tion to what follows, the result is $57,593.37 expended from 
the beginning in tracts and publications. It is safe to say that 
4,200,000 tracts and pamphlets amounting to over 42,000,000 
pages have been sent out by the church in the period under 
consideration. 

In addition to the above, the Book and Tract Work so- 
licited an endowment, which, at the time of consolidation, in 
pledges and all amounted to $64,884.93. Of this amount 
$9,120 was cash paid in. Through failures, financially and 
other ways, not all the pledges will be paid. 

The list of tracts in the English now numbers 65, covering 
practically every phase of doctrine especially emphasized by 
the Brethren, as well as other subjects of a general nature. Be- 
sides, four doctrinal tracts are published in the Swedish, four 
in the Danish, and seven in the German languages. A com- 
plete list can be had for the asking at any time, and the 
tracts themselves are sent out on very easy terms. Their use- 
fulness can never be estimated. Converts may stand up for 
Christ in a meeting and the minister feel God has blessed his 
efforts, when really it was some tract in a silent way that 
started the soul Godward. 

Denmark and Sweden. 

Ten years before organized missionary effort was made, 
Bro. C. Hope, an earnest seeker after truth, was baptized in 
the Hickory Grove congregation of Northern Illinois, on 
Oct. 25, 1874. He was a Dane who had come to America in 
search for a body of people who not only believed in Jesus 
Christ but sought to be obedient to him in all things. No 



GALEN B. ROYER 279 

sooner was he a member of the church than his heart turned 
to the homeland and the need of the Gospel there. He wrote 
tracts. Through The Pilgrim^ a call for money to publish 
tracts was responded to with surprising liberality. They were 
sent to Denmark and a call came back that a soul awaited bap- 
tism. This stirred hearts greatly and on November 12, 1875, 
persons interested in sending the Gospel to Denmark gathered 
at Cherry Grove :church in Northern Illinois to arrange to 
meet this call, and the lot fell upon Brethren Enoch Eby and 
Paul Wetzel to go on this first mission out of the United 
States. But they could not speak the language and an inter- 
preter must be sent with them. The choice unanimously fell 
upon Brother Hope and his wife. By January, 1876, the fam- 
ily left Iowa, visited Huntingdon, Pennsylvania, and other 
points and in due course of time landed at Aalborg, Denmark, 
to prepare for the coming of the appointed missionaries. On 
May 5, 1876, Christian Hansen, now an elder residing at Bron- 
derslev, and the one who called for baptism were received 
into membership. Later Sister Christina Frederickson who 
afterwards became the wife of Elder P. C. Poulsson was bap- 
tized. The enthusiasm with which Brother Hansen pushed 
the work in the way of tract distribution cast him into prison 
for a season. But he did not renounce the faith. The next 
year eight souls were added and the latter part of that year 
Brother and Sister Enoch Eby and Brother and Sister Daniel 
Fry reached Hjorring, Denmark. A church was organized 
with thirteen members. Bro. C. Eskildsen, still living and 
laboring at the same place, was chosen minister. Thus the 
work was begun in Denmark through the direct efforts of 
Northern Illinois, aided by liberal [contributions from other 
parts of the Brotherhood. 

Brother Hope was a man far-reaching in his plans, untir- 
ing in his efforts, wonderful in faith and nearness to the Lord, 
and thus it was that he reached out for the larger things of 



280 DEVELOPMENT OF MISSIONS 

God's promises and made the most rapid progress among his 
people. 

Sweden, a sister country, separated from Denmark by a 
narrow body of water, soon became the field of active opera- 
tions for a part of his time. The membership has always been 
more or less scattered and the efforts of the workers could not 
be centered on a few localities as in this country. In recent 
years, Elder A. W. Vaniman and wife labored in these two 
countries making their headquarters at Malmo, Sweden. One 
great hindrance has been the attitude of the Governments in 
compelling every male to learn the art of war. This has 
prompted most of the young men who have accepted Christ to 
come to America and has kept others from joining and suffer- 
ing the imprisonment which attends those who refuse. J. M. 
Risberg and several others in Sweden have thus suffered for 
Christ's sake. 

The Committee presented a memorial to the Government 
of Sweden praying for some leniency in this particular, but 
the prayer did not quite get a majority of the Riksdag. 

Such an adverse condition not only drove the young men 
from the country, but in many instances the young women fol- 
lowed, or else married outside of the church at home and have 
been lost to her. It is to be regretted, too, that in many in- 
stances those coming to America have located in parts not 
near a congregation of the Brethren and have been lost to the 
church. The Committee seeing this, in 1894 took under ad- 
visement a plan of colonizing the foreign members as fast as 
they landed. But so many difficulties confronted it that all 
efforts were finally abandoned. 

These statements will prepare every one to understand 
how it is that there should be upwards of six hundred ac- 
cessions to the church in thirty years in these two countries and 
yet there be today only two congregations in Denmark with a 
total membership of but eighty-four while in Sweden they have 
five congregations with one-hundred and twenty-seven mem- 



GALEN B. ROYER 281 

bers. The expenditure in these two countries reaches $48,- 
172.93. 

Asia Minor. 
In midwinter of 1895-96, G. J. Fercken and wife of Wash- 
ington State came to Mt. Morris and united with the church. 
He had command of Armenian and Arabic languages. Previ- 
ous to this Bro. D. L. Miller had traveled through Asia Minor 
and had written his Seven Churches of Asia. There naturally 
was interest settled around this country among the Brethren. 
And since Bro. Fercken commanded the languages of the coun- 
try this was looked upon as an opportunity to open a mis- 
sion at Smyrna. At the Annual Meeting of 1895, Brother 
Fercken was recommended as a missionary to Asia Minor. He 
with his family proceeded to the field that fall, and soon after 
Bro. D. L. Miller and wife, H. B. Brumbaugh, T. T. Myers 
and W. L. Bingham visited the country. On September 29, 
1895, the first love-feast was held. On October 17, 1896, 
the first convert was baptized and by the close of the fiscal 
year, April 15, 1896, nine had been received. Thus was the 
beginning of the Asia Minor mission. Because of the persecu- 
tions during the terrible times of Armenian massacres, there 
was need of an orphanage, and within a year afterwards one 
had been established in which there were some twenty-five cared 
for. Eight more had been received by baptism and the follow- 
ing year sixteen. All was bright and hopeful when the dark 
cloud of persecution and trouble came to the mission in 1899, 
which resulted, after a careful investigation by Brother Miller, 
in recommending the removal of Brother Fercken and some 
one to take his place. No one was found and in recent years 
the work has not been kept up, at least by the direction of 
the Committee. Brother Demetrius Chirighotis, who was in 
America awhile, promised to build up the cause, but he rarely 
reports and so it is not known what the real situation is at 
present. The amount of money donated and expended in this 
field is $9,735.09. 



282 DEVELOPMENT OF MISSIONS 

Switzerland and France. 

When it became definitely known that Brother Fercken 
could not return to Smyrna, for he had fled from the city for 
safety, it was decided that he take up work in Switzerland 
where he had some former acquaintance. Within a year he 
gathered some thirteen members about him into a congre- 
gation at Lancy, Switzerland, and twelve more at Oyannax, 
France. A minister was appointed at Oyannax to assist in the 
work. During 1900, a meetinghouse was erected in Geneva, 
Switzerland, as a cost of $2,650.00. A number of accessions 
were made during the year. The meetinghouse, however, was 
unfortunately located, and never became much of a help in 
the work and today is offered for sale. An orphanage was 
started at Montreal and a few girls gathered there and taught 
and helped. In November, 1906, Brother Fercken, who had 
for some time been showing sympathy with the Swedenborgian 
faith, suddenly left Europe and identifying himself with that 
body, sailed to another part of the world. It is needless to say 
that such reverses are hard upon a cause that had many odds 
against it. The missions were visited frequently by different 
members from America, touring Europe, and there was op- 
portunity of establishing the faith, especially in France. 

Among those who joined in with the Brethren in the 
earlier part of the work were Brother and Sister Adrian Pellet. 
They have been earnest and faithful and today have charge of 
the work in France. For sad thought it is to record, with the 
sudden departure of Brother Fercken, the members scattered in 
Geneva and would have nothing more to do with the church. 
Brother Pellets are located at Oyannax, France, and are giv- 
ing the work their best endeavors. The membership is some- 
thing in the neighborhood of twenty. It is believed that 
since Brother Pellet is located in France and that the Republic 
has thrown off Catholicism and opened the door wide to 
Protestantism, there is a good prospect of building up the 
membership again and reestablishing fully the faith and prac- 



GALEN B. ROYER 283 

tice of the Brethren. Thus far, besides the cost of the meet- 
inghouse, $2,650, there has been spent in the mission work of 
these two places, Switzerland and France, $15,835.69, and 
$3,575.21 for orphanage work, making a total of $22,060.90 in 
this field. 

India. 

When the 1884 General Conference was wrestling with 
the problem of organized general missionary work, and meet- 
ing objections to such a move, the Lord had in Warren ville, 
Illinois, a village about thirty-five miles from Chicago, a young 
man of eighteen summers working by the month in a grist mill, 
whom he was preparing to open mission work in India for the 
Brethren. This young man had a desire for an education and 
used his spare moments and evenings to that end. He ac- 
cepted through the solicitation of Elder Simon Yundt, now of 
California, a one-term tuition scholarship in Mt. Morris Col- 
lege and pushed his way through school until he had a good 
education. He has had and still has his peculiarities and 
weaknesses as other people have theirs, but his life stands out 
in strong contrast with most others in this : While at school he 
came in touch with the slowly awakening missionary sentiment 
of the church at that time, and instead of being afraid of it as 
most people were or indifferent to it as many others, he al- 
lowed its fullest power to develop in him. Not " the heathen at 
our door," the strong argument of Satan today to prevent 
world-wide evangelization, but the heathen in heathen lands, 
was the great concern of this young man, Wilbur B. Stover. 
For them he prayed, for them he talked and preached, and in 
their behalf he plead everywhere most earnestly. 

This agitation led to the setting apart of Brother and 
Sister Stover and Sister Bertha Ryan, at the Meyersdale An- 
nual Conference, in 1894, for a mission in India. The same fall 
the party sailed and landed in Bombay on November 24, 1894. 
After due consideration, they selected the Gujerati field, north 
of Bombay, and made their headquarters at Bulsar on March 



284 DEVELOPMENT OF MISSIONS 

8, 1895. While there were missionaries of other denominations 
at Bombay, there were none in the field chosen. They were 
compelled to mark out their own pathway, deal with all new 
problems first-handed, and seek success without any precedent 
in their own lives or the history of the church. They worked 
faithfully and earnestly amidst heathen idolatry, superstition 
and sin, and about two years later, or April 25, 1897, their 
hearts were gladdened by the baptism of eleven converts, the 
first fruits in India. 

The missionaries were hardly settled in their station at 
Bulsar in 1895, when Bishop D. L. Miller, who may be justly 
termed '* the father of missions in the Brethren Church," and 
his wife out of deep interest for the work on a foreign 
soil, and at their own expense, visited India and gave the 
workers good counsel and much help. 

During the latter part of the same year the first converts 
were received, the awful famine of '97 broke out. Preaching 
the Gospel became secondary, for the one great cry was bread 
for the body, and the missionaries were glad to be able to 
minister to the wants of many of the suffering millions about 
them. 

That same fall Sister Ryan returned to America and 
wrote the call for famine relief to which the Brotherhood re- 
.sponded with gifts to the amount of $36,890.21. The story 
of suffering, of exposure, of the ravages of death, need not be 
recounted. Would to God famine never visited the Earth ! But 
out of this great distress grew a great blessing. The ministry 
of mercy and helpfulness called forth the admiration of the 
natives. The necessity of establishing an orphanage was so 
pronounced and urgent, that before having time to confer 
with the home Board, they had under their fostering care over 
a hundred of the thousands of orphans, made so through star- 
vation of parents. The largest number in the Brethren's or- 
phanage at one time was near five hundred. At first the boys' 
orphanage was at Anklesvar under the care of Bishop S. N. 



GALEN B. ROYER 285 

McCann, and the girls' at Bulsar under the supervision of 
Sister Eliza B. Miller. The ones at Jalalpor were divided be- 
tween these two stations. But in 1905 the boys were moved 
to Bulsar, and, while in two separate compounds, they are 
under one general supervision. The feeding, clothing, shelter- 
ing and educating of these children started out upon the basis 
of $16 per year , until, beginning with 1908, the basis has been 
changed to $20 per year to meet the increased price of food 
supplies. Some of the orphans have proven unfaithful to the 
opportunities given them, while many of them have made use 
of them to their individual good. The story of the Cross was 
taught each day, and now as these children reach maturity and 
establish homes for themselves, here and there are to be found 
Christian native homes in which, through tidiness and good 
housekeeping on the part of the wife, and diligence and frugal- 
ity on the part of the husband, they are preaching louder ser- 
mons for Christ than they could in any other way. On Decem- 
ber 31, 1907, there were 109 boys and 89 girls under the care 
of the orphanage. Up to March 31, 1908, there has been do- 
nated and expended on orphanage work, exclusive of famine 
donation, $38,633.42. 

Instead of waiting for volunteers, the General Missionary 
Committee at its spring meeting in 1897, after prayerful con- 
sideration, asked Bishop S. N. McCann, Brother and Sister 
D. L. Forney, who was at the time engaged in mission work in 
Arkansas, and Sister Elizabeth Gibble of Lancaster County, 
Pennsylvania, to go to India that fall. The call was much un- 
expected to all of them, but with one heart they all said, " I 
am willing to be used of the church where she thinks best." 
On June 29, 1898, Brother McCann and Sister Gibble were 
united in marriage and the following November, one year, 
took the Anklesvar station. The year preceding, or 1899, 
Brother Forneys located at Novsari, but in about a year after 
land was bought and a home built at Jalalpor, a city near by 
but of better location. In 1899, land was bought and the be- 



286 DEVELOPMENT OF MISSIONS 

ginning of the buildings now found at Bulsar commenced. In 
1900 Brother and Sister Adam Ebey, and Sister Eliza B. Miller 
of Waterloo, Iowa, landed in India. The work opened out 
rapidly, much faster than the force on the field could keep 
pace with it. There were now nine American missionaries on 
the field and three stations, — Bulsar, Anklesvar, and Jalalpor. 
These were organized into churches, and in October, 1901, the 
first District Meeting of the Brethren in India was held at 
Jalalpor. This was another milestone in the growth of the 
church, for at this meeting Bishop W. B. Stover was sent as 
a delegate to the Annual Conference to be held at Harrisburg, 
Pennsylvania, and he with his family sailed for America five 
days after the District Meeting. Upon reaching America, 
fiushed with enthusiasm and unusual experiences from India, 
and received with open arms everywhere. Brother Stover la- 
bored night and day, going everywhere telling the story of 
India's needs and reception of the Gospel. 

It is then, no surprise that as soon as they could prepare, 
or in 1903, at the Annual Meeting at Bellefontaine, Ohio, 
eight dear souls, — J. M. and Anna Blough, Isaac and Effie 
Long, Sadie J. Miller, sister to Eliza B., Nora Arnold Lichty, 
Mary N. Quinter, — were presented to the Annual Conference 
and confirmed for India and the blessings of the Lord pro- 
nounced upon them. O. H. Yereman joined the party as medi- 
cal missionary before sailing. But this was not all, for the year 
preceding, when Brother and Sister Stover returned to the 
field, Daniel J. Lichty of Waterloo, Iowa, and Jesse Emmert 
of Waynesboro, Pennsylvania, went with them. 

These were days when there were large ingatherings into 
the church. Upwards of eight hundred or more were re- 
ceived, the direct result of preaching and famine relief work. 
Many of these converts were compelled to return to their 
homes in distant parts, and while a large number have been 
faithful to their vows others have grown cold for the lack 
of proper care. This neglect is the outgrowth of not enough 



GALEN B. ROYER 287 

workers, and the cry came homeward for more help. This 
was answered in 1904, when ten young men and women were 
accepted for this field, namely; A. W. Ross and wife, J. M. 
Pittenger and wife, Gertrude Rowland, S. P. Berkebile and 
wife, E. H. Eby and wife, and J. W. Swigart. The latter, in- 
stead of reaching India, was called to the fields of reward on 
October 15, a short while before sailing time on November 
2. In 1906 the force was again reinforced by Chas. E. Bru- 
baker. Sister Ella Miller and Josephine Powell, making a total 
in all of twenty-eight workers in India, five of whom are home 
on furlough during 1907 and 1908. Sister Bertha Ryan, 
Brother Forney and wife and Dr. Yereman are not under ap- 
pointment in India but are residing in the United States. 

Within this short scope of fourteen years, four churches 
have been organized, namely ; Anklesvar, Bulsar, Jalalpor and 
Vada, and with six other regular stations they have an active 
membership of 428, a nominal membership of 359 additional 
and 267 adherents, making a total membership in these Chris- 
tian communities of 1,064. They have nine Sunday schools for 
Christians, twenty-five for non-Christians, with an attendance 
of 1,027. Of this number, 232 passed All India Examinations 
in 1907. They have contributed over 500 rupees, or $135.94, 
to missions within that time. They have established industrial 
work under the supervision of Brother Jesse B. Emmert. Be- 
sides the buildings at Bulsar, there are bungalows at Jalalpor, 
Anklesvar, Vyara, Vada, Ahwa, Dahanu and Umalla. For 
two years they have published a Gujerati Quarterly edited by 
Brother J. M. Blough. 

The expense of the mission for this time is as follows: 

For Mission Work, $ 75,097.07 

For Famine Work, 36,890.21 

For Orphanage Work, 36,633.42 

Total, $148,620.70 

Besides being visited by Brother and Sister D. L. Miller 
three times, Sister May Oiler in 1898, W. R. Miller in 1904 



288 DEVELOPMENT OF MISSIONS 

and again in 1907, D. B. Zigler, D. M. Click and C. W. Guthrie 
in 1907, have visited the mission. 

God has been wonderfully good to our missionaries. 
There has been some sickness and once it was advised that 
Sister Lichty should return home on that account. Later 
advice states that she has been completely cured and of course 
is happy in the work. The only deaths to be recorded within 
the period are Brother and Sister Eby's children, John, Paul, 
Mary, and an infant. 

There is but one great need, — ^that is more workers and 
more means to push the work. 

Our Publishing Interests. 

When the consolidation of the General Church Erection 
and Missionary Committee and the Brethren Book and Tract 
Work was effected in 1894, a clause was incorporated in the 
purpose of the new Committee that *' when suitable arrange- 
ments can be made and wisdom dictates, to own and control 
all the publishing interests of the church." Not until 1897, 
after a few members donated an endowment of $50,000 neces- 
sary to purchase the stock of the Brethren Publishing Com- 
pany at par value, did the Committee make use of this grant. 
The members who held the stock sold at par, a decided sacri- 
fice if looked at from an earning standpoint, as subsequent 
history will show, but in the interest of the church, they 
cheerfully consented, and some of them donated all or part of 
their stock to the project. The available property as set forth 
in the Conference Report of 1894 is $50,261.87. In order to 
better facilitate business matters and seek every advantage 
for the business, the General Missionary and Tract Committee 
moved its office and the Publishing House to Elgin in 1899. 
Here they had bought property, put up buildings to suit their 
needs and have been building almost every other year since to 
meet their growing needs. Today the Committee has $130,000.00 
of its endowment invested in the publishing business. During 



GALEN B. ROYER 289 

the eleven years the House has turned over for actual mission 
work, $61,436.30 and increased its own equipment in addi- 
tion $90,600. In this period the Gospel Messenger has in- 
creased its circulation one third, the Sunday-school papers per- 
haps a half or more, and the Teacher's Monthly and Inglenook 
came into existence and have been playing an important part in 
our publications. 

No wiser and better move was made by the church than 
to provide that her publishing interests should be in the control 
of her own Conference through the General Missionary and 
Tract Committee. 

Conclusion. 

Thus the church has wrought under the blessings of God 
through the past quarter of a century or more. If she has 
been slow to take this first purpose of her existence she has 
awakened with a pace commendable. 

What might be done if every one sought first the Kingdom, 
as the Master commands, no human heart can foretell. If 
every member were a real missionary somewhere, — if for every 
member at home there was a missionary on the field, some 
might be fewer in dollars, but richer in grace, and the world 
would be singing, today, hallelujahs to God instead of bowing 
down to gods of wood and stone. 

The church is looking forward and outward, — praise his 
name. With the enlarging of the work in India, its closer 
care in Europe, and the beginning of the work in China as 
now contemplated ; with the districts organized to do thorough 
work in their own territories, which if properly accomplished 
only makes more resources for other lands ; with the publish- 
ing interests as an immeasurable factor in this aggressive work 
for Christ; with a generation of volunteers and enthusiasts 
taught from their mother's knee the story of heathen need and 
personal obligation; with a ministry quickening rapidly to the 
responsibility as well as opportunity of greater consecration, 
Id 



290 DEVELOPMENT OF MISSIONS 

it would appear that the church is at the beginning of a 
mighty work for God. 

Will we rise to the opportunity? Will the conviction go 
to the very heart, " Lord what wilt thou have me to do ? " and 
then every one be up and do in simple faith, — will the wonder- 
ful blessings of the past be an inspiration to greater efforts of 
the future ? These questions must be answered in the rank and 
file, — ^by the individual in every congregation — to accomplish 
this wonderful work. The world is in darkness and need; 
and from the hearts and homes east and west, north and south, 
comes up the tender though determined voice in reply, " By 
God's grace we will." 



^ 




William Mohler Howe 



Part Two 
The Influence of Missions on the Church 

By William M. Howe 

Listen! — to the birds! Do you hear them sing? How 
beautiful! But do you know that some worms and bugs lost 
their lives this morning that this singing might continue? 
There is more life in the world today because there has been 
some death. 

" Life evermore is fed by death, 
In earth and sea and sky, 
And that a rose may breathe its breath, 
Something must die." 

Life is never inexpensive. In things divine there is no 
gain without loss. There is no profit without cost. If a grain 
of wheat fall into the ground it bringeth forth no fruit except 
it die (John 12 : 24). If one would lay up treasures in heaven 
he must lay down some treasures before he gets to heaven. 
" Give and you get " is the Bible rule. It is the law of God 
in every place. 

Here are facts that stagger the carnal mind. Here are the 
reasons why dead men and women are found on every hand 
in the church of Jesus Christ. They are dead to Christ and not 
alive because they are not dead to self. They will not pay the 
price that insures a profit. They do not see far enough because 
they walk by sight. If they would walk by faith they would 
see and know that death is necessary and that death pays — 
the death that is followed by true living. " To die is gain " 
said our beloved brother Paul and his " I die daily " proved 

291 



292 INFLUENCE OF MISSIONS 

that he meant all he said. The mission cause never goes beg- 
ging at the hands of such a man. 

God's children may well die to all things that interfere 
with a strict obedience to the Word of God. They need not 
fear when God the loving Father speaks. When in his Son he 
says " Go ye into all the world and preach my gospel to every 
creature," they should not hesitate. 

"Theirs not to reason why; 
Theirs but to do and die" and live. 

Love does not consider the cost of service. " Love 
seeketh not her own." Jesus knew that when he said, " If 
you love me keep my commandments." Love that is blind will 
still obey. But love that is blind shall see. If any man will 
love God enough to do his will he shall know as he did not 
know before (John 7: 17). Peter was quieted with the words 
of Jesus " What I do thou knowest not now but thou shalt 
know hereafter." So the child of God need never fear re- 
sults because he does not know the things that are to follow. 
Faith is never reckless, but faith ventures. 

But our task today is not to consider the cost of mis- 
sions, nor the sacrifices that must be made to sustain them 
through the years. Our task is not a task at all. It shall be 
our pleasure now to meditate with you concerning the returns 
from missionary effort and from the sacrifices that make them 
a fact. 

The original and total cost of an orchard that is now in 
bearing is no concern of ours today, but what it means at the 
present to those that secured it and who still care for it. The 
sacrifices that were made to own a comfortable home are for- 
gotten when a man revels in the joys that are his because he 
owns the roof that shelters him and the garden in which he 
walks. 

What then have missions done for the church? Be very 
sure that when we seek to enrich others we at the same time en- 
rich ourselves. Missionary effort, like mercy, is twice blest. 



WILLIAM M. HOWE 293 

" It blesseth him that gives and him that takes." When an 
effort to help the helpless fails, it fails but once, not twice. 
The giver is always blest and his blessing is the greater in any 
case for " 'Tis more blessed to give than to receive." 

We have been taught that the Lord's supper is a means of 
grace; that the communion is a means of grace; that feet- 
washing is a means of grace; that when we carry out any 
command of our Lord, it is a means of grace. Without doubt 
then when the " Go ye " of the Gospel is complied with it be- 
comes a means of grace. And we will never know how much 
grace can thus be secured, until we secure the missions that are 
on God's program for us. 

Mission work, however, is a work for Christian people. 
We are not saved because we thus work. We work thus be- 
cause we are saved. We do not work to insure our salva- 
tion, but to carry salvation to others. If one is not interested 
in missions, it proves that in this matter he is not like Christ. 
There are two kinds of church members. The one sits around 
wondering if the heathen will not be saved anyway. They 
think the heathen have about as good a chance as themselves. 
It may be even so. The other has not thought of that, but 
has wondered if any man is saved who does not " go " or give. 
He loves to tell the story of Jesus and as he goes he sings : 
" I long to see the season come, 
When the heathen shall come flocking home." 

As the purpose of missions is to bring souls to Christ, so 
the influence of missions on the church is to increase her 
numbers. In two hundred years we have grown from an or- 
ganization of eight to an organization of one hundred thousand 
souls. While we must thank God for this increase, it is no 
time for congratulations. Let us rather be sorry that in these 
two centuries we have not allowed ourselves to be doubly 
used of God so that we might now number one hundred thou- 
sand workers and as many more that might become workers 
at no distant day. 



294 INFLUENCE OF MISSIONS 

Missionary effort enlarges the borders of Zion. We open 
up new territory and there is a field for all the workers and a 
most worthy purpose for the enlistment of all the unemployed 
talent of the church. One of our school men has justified the 
gymnasium because in it the students work off their surplus 
energy, and as a result the schools are more easily controlled. 
We have thought a bit more kindly of the gymnasium ever 
since. Our missions will do no less for the church when we 
get enough of them and our people properly interested in them. 
Then let the mission field be the church's gymnasium — the 
church's athletic field — where our young people may walk 
circumspectly, where they may by the grace of God, repeat the 
acts of the apostles, and where they may all lay aside every 
weight while they run the race set before them as they go with 
the whole Gospel to the four corners of the earth. 

If we do not want our children to swing on the devil's 
gate, nor yet on our own, we may and should win them from 
both with a swing from the limbs of our own apple tree. 
Live boys and girls will swing somewhere. " An idle brain is 
the devil's workshop." An idle heart is too. Idle hands are 
his tools. This is true in the church as in the home or in the 
school. If we will not allow God to use us to direct the en- 
ergies of our young people, the devil will use others to direct 
these same energies. If our energies are not used to lift 
others to a higher plane and then in turn be a blessing to us, 
then those unused energies will become a curse to us and to 
our children. 

Not only are our numbers and our territory thus enlarged 
but active mission work gives the church vision. We see like 
we did not see before. A nickel looks as big as a five dollar 
gold piece, and it may pass for as much in the estimation of 
him who drops it into the collection unless there is proper 
vision. But having the faith of Jesus we have his eyes and we 
see things as they are. Moreover we see beyond ourselves. 
We see the unsaved when we go to them. We see their hope- 



WILLIAM M. HOWE 295 

less condition. We see farther. We see Canada and Mexico. 
We see Central and South America. We see Norway, Sweden 
and Switzerland. We see around the world. We see Corea, 
China and Japan. We see " India's coral strand " and we 
want the privilege, in every place, to lend a helping hand. We 
see, to a degree, as God sees when we do as God wants us to do. 
" He that doeth his will shall know of the doctrine." We see 
the world's needs and we see our own. And when we know 
that the world depends on us then we are inclined to depend 
on God. We are helped and we are happy. God blesses us and 
makes us a blessing, and God is glorified. 

When one has a heart for missions then the call of the 
cities is heeded and every other Macedonia gets a respectful 
hearing. He that has a heart for the Gospel and for missions 
has an ear for the cry of the unsaved. 

As a missionary church we see what other missionaries are 
doing. When we hear that the women of a single branch of 
one denomination in this country annually raise four hundred 
thousand dollars and hand it over, without expense, to their 
missionary board, our eyes are wider opened to a sense of our 
duty and our privilege. And our regrets are many because 
we do not raise every year one hundred thousand dollars or 
more for the spread of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. 

When we further hear of the hundreds of missionaries that 
are in the field in addition to our own, our hearts are stirred 
and we are provoked to more and better work. The Brethren 
have ever been a missionary people, but we have never been 
a missionary people as we ought to be. We have never come 
up to the standard. But the more we do, the more we see to 
do, and the more we realize how little we have done. Then 
do we begin to feel our insufficiency and our unworthiness 
and in all this experience there is revealed to us as never before 
the worthiness of Christ together with the love of God and 
his willingness and power to save. Our self-satisfied air van- 
ishes as the dew before the morning sun. Our narrow, bigoted 



296 INFLUENCE OF MISSIONS 

ideas melt away in the presence of the knowledge and the 
warmth of God's love to the sinful in the world. For who 
that has grown in grace and in the knowledge of God has not 
felt rebuked at some former estimate of his kindness and his 
love? No doubt very often, 

" We make God's love too narrow 
By false limits of our own; 
And we magnify his strictness 
With a zeal he'll never own. 

" For the love of God is broader 

Than the measure qf man's mind. 
And the heart of the eternal 
Is most wonderfully kind." 

We used to think that the Brethren Church was for our 
relatives — the best of them, and our neighbors — the pick of 
them, and our scattered friends. It was a little, narrow, un- 
worthy, Jewish notion. Such a pharisaical heart is so unlike 
that of our Lord's which was big enough for men of all lands 
and all climes, and for men that have been guilty of all manner 
of sin. Missionary work brings us in closer touch with this 
Saviour of all men and we grow into a knowledge of God's 
love. We grow spiritually — in stature, in wisdom, in humility 
and in favor with God and man. 

Some of us learn that we have the Gospel of Christ to 
spread rather than a gospel of our own devising which per- 
chance has poorly suited those to whom we have gone. With 
reason we have tried to forget that we ever thought we one 
time knew it all and had nothing more to learn. We have 
gone with a new life, and deepened interest, and purer mo- 
tives to the Word of God which has become a new book to 
many. Now we seek for the truth as it is found in the Scrip- 
tures rather than for a verse to prove a pet notion of our 
own. Certainly education fosters missions — sometimes, as we 
have heard. But missions foster education always. 

Like all other denominations, we have had from year to 



WILLIAM M. HOWE 297 

year our problems demanding a solution at our hands. A 
few of the small questions have appeared of great importance 
to some of us who knew of no bigger ones. Keep your eyes 
upon a penny and you will see properly nothing else beside. 
But with our eyes on Jesus, as we get busy carrying out the 
" Go ye " of the Gospel, all questions adjust themselves in 
proper proportion. Great questions grow great in our es- 
timation while some questions grow small. And we are pleased 
to discover that the spirit of missions, which is the spirit of 
Christ, will sooner or later solve them all. One of our plain- 
est brethren once remarked that he was glad to say that he 
needed no church rules to tell him how to dress. When we 
note the zeal of some of our fathers as they seek to bring souls 
to Christ, we need not be surprised if they consider of little im- 
portance some of the questions that interested their fathers 
fifty years ago. 

Missionary thought and effort therefore, when widely ex- 
tended, insures the peace of the church. Being led by the 
Spirit of God to work for him, we need not rules and laws 
to govern us as do the indolent, the lawless and the disobedient. 
As a result we have a peace and a quietness in our own hearts 
that the ritualist has never known. At the same time we have 
a charity for the wayward that will bring them quickest in 
closer touch with Jesus. 

Missionary effort always works for harmony and for 
peace. When we contend earnestly for the faith that was de- 
livered unto the saints we contend less with each other. When 
people fight the devil much they fight each other little. Men 
that work have little time to quarrel. Without the Sunday 
school, the Bible ;class, the missions and other Christian work, 
we have time for trouble of many kinds. Our own dear Broth- 
erhood would be sadly divided on nonessentials if it were not 
kept together in a single motive to save souls. When we work 
with Christ we work without friction among ourselves. Ideal 
cooperation with the Lord and with each other would make of 



298 IISTFLUENCE OF MISSIONS 

us a " battering ram " to make lasting impressions in the home 
field and in foreign lands. 

Divisions in our ranks would never have been the sad fact 
of history had many more of us been led of God in passing to 
the heathen and to our weaker brethren the good bread of eter- 
nal life, rather than continually clinging zealously to the bare 
bone of pharisaical contention. 

Were we at this time the missionary people that God would 
have us be, many of us would be old order today like we are 
not. Many of us would be progressive like we are not. We 
would all be conservative as we ought. Extremes, with joy 
may meet in Christ, where charity reigns supreme and where 
good works continue to abound. 

Love is one of the paying products of the fertile mission 
field. When in that field we walk and work together. We love 
each other more. We see the objects — the unfortunate, the 
miserable objects of God's love and we marvel the more at that 
love that sent the Savior down. Our hearts enlarge and we are 
convinced afresh that " the mint, the anise, and the cummin " 
of formality are not the essentials in the Christian religion, 
but love, mercy, faith and judgment. 

God hath made of one blood all the nations of the earth. 
But who believes it save the enlightened child of God? He 
knows that he is the salt of the earth and the light of the world 
and so he aims to do his neighbor good. While at first he 
knows that he is his brother's keeper, by the faith and love 
that makes him work he soon comes to realize that he is his 
brother's brother. 

Some have delighted themselves in the pessimistic words 
of Kipling: 

" Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall 
meet." 

They should read farther and note Kipling's answer to 
these words. He adds : 



WILLIAM M. HOWE 299 

" But there is neither East nor West 
Border, nor Breed, nor Birth 
When two strong men stand face to face, 
Tho they come from the ends of the earth." 

And the child of God knows, like others don't, that only 
Christ and Christianity can make any man great. 

The missionary, seeing Jesus Christ, has added also: 

*'But Christ is Christ, and rest is rest, and love true love must 

greet. 
In East and West hearts crave for rest, and so the twain shall 

meet — 
The East still East, the West still West, at love's nail-pierced 

feet." 

We never learn the value of love till we love. Love nev- 
er grows till it goes. Love is never kept save by those who con- 
tinually give it away. Love enriches the giver when the giv- 
er's love enriches others. Love in action means love enlarging. 
While reaching out in behalf of others we forget the friction 
and the petty quarrels that come from being self-centered. 
Nothing kills selfishness quicker than missions. When we 
find abounding that love that puts us to work for others then 
will the kiss of charity be more holy than before. Then will 
we have peace, for the endless chain of holy kisses will be too 
strong to break. 

Any work for God encourages sacrifice for him. This is 
especially true of missionary work. We have not forgotten 
the woman we went to hear some years ago. She was to 
get fifty dollars for her lecture. It was her ordinary charge. 
We were anxious to see how foolishly a woman like that 
would dress. She had the money to get what she wanted 
and we believe she got that. She had no one, we think, to 
hinder her. But she was modestly attired. Superfluities were 
hard to find. She had a message for the people and was happy 
in delivering it from place to place, while she cared not for 
the foolish fashions of the world. How much more when 
brethren and sisters are interested in carrying the message 



300 INFLUENCE OF MISSIONS 

of God's love to the heathen will they lay aside every weight. 
Sacrifices of unnecessary things are not made naturally but 
supematurally. When God works in us " What airs in dress 
and gait do leave us." Tobacco finds no place in the pockets 
or mouth of such a man. 

Mission work brings us in touch with great souls that sac- 
rifice their lives for the good of others. Native Christian mis- 
sionaries have been offered from twenty to fifty times the sal- 
ary they were getting to go into the employ of the govern- 
ment and would not make the change. We have brethren and 
sisters on the foreign field that are worth anywhere from 
one thousand to five thousand dollars per year who having 
food and raiment are therewith content. It is inspiring to 
shake the hand of one like that or even to hear of these lights 
that shine and of these souls that work for God. The life 
of such a consecrated soul is always a benediction to many. 

The disciples spent three and a half years with the self- 
sacrificing Jesus — the greatest missionary the world has ever 
seen. Then they were ready to " go into all the world." Our 
hearts will also beat in sympathy with those who love to carry 
glad tidings to the unsaved if we will but allow ourselves to 
come in closer touch with him who loved to give himself for 
others. 

The spirit of missions is the spirit of sacrifice. Be not 
alarmed. Sacrifice insures life. Give a missionary and you 
get another one. The mantle falls on others. Elijah was fol- 
lowed by Elisha. This has been repeated in modern times. 
It was a great sacrifice to give a Stover but when he was given 
we had more to give. A certain congregation thought they 
could not give a certain sister, one of their number who felt 
called of God to go into city mission work. They said they 
would miss her and could not do without her. Some thought 
they would miss her nickels in the collection. But she an- 
swered the call of God. She went, and they did miss her, but 
not as they thought. There were other nickels and dollars. 



WILLIAM M. HOWE 301 

silver and gold, to take the place of hers. What is more, 
there were other workers to fill her place and the church has 
been the richer because they gave their sister. 

Because of mission work we give more. Give your sis- 
ter, give your child or give your time and you'll want to give 
more money too. But fear not. We'll forget all about the cost 
of the seed we sowed when we gather in the sheaves. " Give 
and you get " is the Bible rule. And then when a Christian gets 
more he gives more. " Freely ye have received freely give," 
is the welcome admonition from Jesus. The woman that 
received forgiveness much and free poured out unstintingly 
her affection upon her Lord and Master. 

God always meant his chosen people to be a light to the 
world. We are not surprised that of the Jews he asked a 
tithe of all their increase. And they might gladly have wel- 
comed such a request from the God of high heaven for he 
promised the more to enrich them if they kept his words. 

We cannot certainly find that he has asked a tithe of us. 
We have wondered why it is not plain that we must give as 
did the Jews. He feared, no doubt, too many would stop 
at that and then they would have quit the path that Jesus 
trod and would miss the joy that was his to give. 

My brethren, if the children of the evil one give half they 
get, in many cases, to the world, the flesh and the devil, marvel 
not, if you feel a longing to give to God a tithe and more 
of all he gives to you. Satisfy that longing. It is from God. 
Give as your Father in heaven directs and he will give as you 
direct. Some of us should sell a farm occasionally, and many 
of us something smaller now and then, and deposit every 
cent of it in the treasury of the Lord. Fear not, brethren. 
The Bank of Heaven will never break. Besides the dividends 
are large and what is more they are payable in every time of 
need. 

After a man has given most liberally of his earthly 
treasures, how little it all is compared to that which the mis- 



302 INFLUENCE OF MISSIONS 

sionary gives when he gives himself. There are workers 
on both sides of the sea who get but a dollar in cash for 
every ten they give in sacrifice. These are more content and 
joyful, often, than those who give to God only a tithe of all 
their increase. 

Some have wondered why the missionary does not grow 
weary in well doing and quit his post. There is a reason. 
There is great joy in service. Jesus endured for the joy set 
before him. The missionary finds a peace and a joy he 
never knew before. The people that send him sacrifice with 
him and they share his joy. The time should soon come 
when every large congregation shall have a representative in 
the foreign field that in the homeland we might all possess 
a greater degree of the joy of Jesus. 

Finally, my brethren, do we not see like we did not twenty 
years ago ? Let us open our eyes and see more. Let us in some 
large way see Christ and the unsaved. We must not fail to 
thank God for what he has done for us and others, nor must 
we fail to see how little we have done. Seeing differently 
we must act differently. We must work like we did not a 
few years ago. Let the rust of inactivity wear entirely away. 

We must give like we did not a few years ago. Let us 
consecrate our affections to God. Then will he get, with no 
dissenting voice from us, a proper share of our time, our tal- 
ents and our gold. Then while the gold of the world hangs 
from the ears of the heathen, the gold of the Gospel will hang 
from our lips. Rather than hoard our gold or have it encircle 
our fingers, we will use it to the end that the gold of the Gos- 
pel shall encircle the world. 

Let our sons and our daughters be given to God. Let 
them be given now, however young. Let them be given now — 
before they are bom. Let the good old gospel wagon move on 
and on. Let not unprofitable contention clog the wheels of 
proper progress. Let brotherly love continue. Let unity, joy 
and peace abound and grow. 



WILLIAM M. HOWE 303 

Then will China hear the Gospel that we carry. Then will 
we give to Corea, to Africa and to Japan the chance that Je- 
sus would. Then will we " tell to all the world around what 
a dear Saviour we have found." 

Brethren, let the borders of the church be extended. Let 
our motto ever be " Christ for the world and the world for 
Christ." Then we can sing with a zeal, a sweetness and a 
joy we never knew: 

" I know of a land that is sunk in shame, 

Of hearts that faint and tire: 
I know of a name, a name a name 

Can set that land on fire. 
Its sound is a brand, its letters flame; 

It will lift all men higher. 
I know of a name, a name a name. 

Will set that land on fire." 



Chapter Twelve 
The Educational Work of the Church 




5. Z. Sharp 



Part One 
Early Educational Activities 

By S. Z. Sharp 

The purpose of education is to teach, to instruct. Its 
three great factors or agents are the school, the pulpit and the 
press. While we shall leave to others the task of giving the 
early history of the last two named, as they relate to our 
jchurch, yet a complete outline of the early efforts of edu- 
cation among us would be incomplete without some refer- 
ence to the early religious teaching by our Brethren by means 
of the pulpit and publishing interests. 

Our subject naturally divides itself into the following four 
periods : 

1. The Period of Preparation. 

2. The Period of Organization and Emigration. 

3. The Period of Primary Effort. 

4. The Period of the High School and Coliege. 

1. The Period of Preparation begins about the year 
A. D. 1600, and extends to the year A. D. 1708. It embraces 
the time when those noble, educated and spiritually enlightened 
men lived, labored, and shed forth that light which enabled our 
first Brethren to find the path leading to the church founda- 
tion as Christ laid it and organize upon that foundation a 
church after the pattern shown by the great Master Builder, 
Jesus Christ. 

It is a matter of supreme satisfaction to know that the 
men who wielded so great an influence over the minds of 
our early church members were not ignorant enthusiasts like 
Boehme and Fox, but men of education, who had their minds 

307 



308 EARLY EDUCATIONAL ACTIVITIES 

trained in some of the best universities in Europe and some 
of them were themselves instructors in universities. They 
were trained to reason from cause to effect, could read the 
Scriptures in the original languages in which they were writ- 
ten and could give an unbiased translation of them in the lan- 
guage of the common people. It is to such men that we owe 
the debt of gratitude for the adoption of many of the true 
principles of the Gospel which we now hold as a church. 

First among those noble educators who in a measure 
taught some of our early church members, was Johann Amdt, 
bom in 1555, died in 1620. He was educated in several uni- 
versities and wrote that excellent book entitled, Wahres 
Christen thiim, (True Christianity), which was translated 
into all modern languages and read by millions and is still 
a standard work among many. The aim of this book was to 
awaken the reader to a sense of his true spiritual condition. 

Next came Jean Paul De la Badie, born in 1610, edu- 
cated in the Jesuit College of Bordeaux, France. He became 
a Protestant minister and the father of that mysticism which 
so greatly affected some of our early members, notably Con- 
rad Beissel, once an elder in our church before he formed the 
Seventh Day Tunker Society at Ephrata, Pennsylvania. 

William Penn, educated in Christ College, England, wrote 
a number of tracts in defense of non-resistance, non-swear- 
ing, nonconformity to the world, — principles which we now 
hold as cardinal tenets of our faith. Alexander Mack and his 
associates were brought into close relation with Penn when the 
latter traveled through Germany and afterward many of our 
Brethren were induced to settle at Germantown in his territory. 

Jeremias Felbinger, born in Silesia in 1610, was a re- 
nowned scholar and teacher. He was educated in German, 
HoUandic, Latin, Greek and Hebrew. He translated the 
New Testament into German. He rejected infant baptism, 
taught believers' baptism, feet-washing, the Lord's supper, 



S. Z. SHARP 309 

non-swearing, in short, such doctrines of the New Testament 
as we now hold and practice. 

John Jacob Spener, educated in the University of Stras- 
burg where he also gave instruction. Next to Arndt, Spener 
was the most successful in awakening a spirit of inquiry and 
piety among the professed Christians. He advocated forming 
in the churches, little "societies which he called ecclesicolae in 
ecclesia, or the little churches in the church. These social re- 
ligious meetings and exercises, started by Spener, were en- 
gaged in by Alexander Mack and his associates who met to 
study the Scriptures and the result was the organization of 
the first church of the Brethren at Schwarzenau, Germany, 
in 1708. 

Gottfried Arnold, born in Saxony in 1666, educated at 
Wittenberg, Germany, was a ripe scholar. He not only advo- 
cated the same principles as Spener, but went so far as to urge 
the separation of the truly converted from the established 
churches, supported by worldly governments and thus be- 
came the father of the separatists. 

Among all those eminent scholars and theologians who 
contributed to the formation of our first church at Schwar- 
zenau, Germany, none stands higher or did more noble service 
than Ernst Christoph Hochmann. He was born in 1670, ed- 
ucated in the University at Halle and died at Schwarzenau 
in 1721. There is hardly a question but that at first he was the 
leading spirit of. that little band which later became our first 
organized congregation, for it is said that on his tours of 
preaching, Alexander Mack was often one of his companions. 
At the time our Brethren formed their first church organ- 
ization, he was in confinement or he might have held the place 
in history which is now accorded to Alexander Mack. While 
in prison he wrote out a confession of faith which helped our 
Brethren to crystallize their doctrine into the form we now 
have it. 

Hochmann was well qualified, intellectually, to be a leader 



310 EARLY EDUCATIONAL ACTIVITIES 

of the Pietists, having extraordinary powers in preaching 
and in prayer, attracting great masses of people, not only from 
the common ranks, but also from the nobility. Of him the his- 
torian. Stilling, says : " He was simple in his habits and dress, 
in character the very best. He taught entire change of mind, 
complete conformity to the example of Christ." He awakened 
all northwest Germany and prepared the ground for the sow- 
ing by IMack and his associates. Such were the men who 
lived and labored in the preparatory educational period of 
the Church of l^e Brethren. They were scholars and teachers, 
secular and religious, and taught as directed by the Great 
Teacher. 

2. The Period of Organization and Emigration. — The first 
school of formal teaching established by the Brethren was two 
hundred years ago, in 1708, at Schwarzenau, Germany. In 
this school the Bible was the textbook and the Holy Spirit 
gave instruction. Our first members under the leadership of 
Ernst Christoph Hochmann and Alexander !Mack, having 
been influenced by those pious and noble men just mentioned 
as having lived in the Preparatory Period immediately pre- 
ceding, were now prepared to form a separate organization 
and give formal instruction in the principles of the New Tes- 
tament, which they adopted as their rule of faith and prac- 
tice and which now distinguishes us as a church. 

This school of Christ prospered greatly, but persecution 
arose which drove the members to Creyfelt, ^larienbom, Hol- 
land and other places. At each place there was organization 
and religious teaching. In 1719 emigration began to Amer- 
ica. A church was organized at Germantown to which im- 
migration took place up to the year 1738. From Germantown, 
members emigrated to Xew Jersey and to Ephrata, Pa., Great 
Swamp, Coventr}', Conestoga, Oley and other points in east- 
ern Pennsylvania. In all these places churches were organ- 
ized and the true doctrine of Christ faithfully taught which 
distinguishes this period as one of emigration and organiza- 



S. Z. SHARP 311 

tion. The development of this part of the subject we leave to 
others on church development and proceed to the next. 

3. The Period of Primary Effort. — The year 1738 marks 
an important epoch in the Christian education, not only of the 
Church of the Brethren, but of all churches. It is the year 
in which the first Sunday school was established in America 
and gives the Church of the Brethren the credit of starting 
Sunday-school instruction. Not at Ephrata, as is sometimes 
supposed, but at Germantown was the first Sunday school 
begun, more than forty years before Sunday-school work was 
begun by Robert Raikes in England. 

It was in the year 1738 at Germantown, Pa., that the 
Brethren had regular Sunday afternoon services for the un- 
married or young people at the house of Christopher Saur. 
There is evidence that Ludwig Hoecker was a leading spirit 
if not the superintendent of this work at Germantown, but 
afterward went with others to Ephrata. He must have been an 
educated man, for at Ephrata he was the principal of an 
academy and also superintendent of a Sunday school for more 
than thirty years. The exodus from Germantown to Ephrata, 
of some prominent members, did not seem to stop the Sun- 
day-school work at Germantown; for in 1744, Brother Saur 
printed Sunday-school jcards, on each of which is a scriptural 
quotation and a stanza of poetry. Samples of these cards are 
still extant. 

In 1738 occurred another very important event, not only 
as related to the history of the Church of the Brethren, but 
as related to entire Colonial America from Maine to Georgia 
wherever the German language was spoken. This event was 
the introduction of the German printing press Into America 
by Christopher Saur. While we shall leave to another brother 
the task of giving the history of the press in the Church of 
the Brethren, our educational history would be Incomplete were 
we not to notice the educational phase of the press, not only 
in its influence on the minds of our Brethren, but on the pub- 



312 EARLY EDUCATIONAL ACTIVITIES 

He mind as well, wherever the German language was spoken 
in our land. In the early colonial days when books were few, 
Saur's almanac and newspaper were powerful educators in 
the majority of German homes. Brother Saur, having re- 
ceived university education, was well qualified for the position 
he filled. His style of writing was elegant and vigorous. 
The subjects he discussed were numerous and important, such 
as religion, education, temperance, slavery, war, etc. His 
newspaper was a kind of encyclopedia in the home. 

In 1754, education received an important contribution in 
English by Christopher Saur the younger publishing a work 
on Christian Education. In 1763, Elder Saur, with the as- 
sistance of Alexander Mack, began to publish and freely dis- 
tribute the Geistliche Magazien, (Spiritual Magazine), the 
first religious periodical published in America, and properly 
called a factor in religious education. 

In 1759 the first steps were taken to establish the Ger- 
mantown Academy. In this our Brethren took a keen interest 
and contributed liberally in a financial way. Their elder, 
Christopher Saur, was a prominent promoter of the project 
and one of a committee to raise funds and erect the school 
buildings, also buildings for the instructors. Instruction was 
given both in English and German and the school soon had a 
large attendance. Brother Saur acted as trustee of this insti- 
tution for about twenty years, ten of which he was president 
of the Board of Directors. This active interest taken by our 
Brethren in favor of education must be placed to their credit 
as one of the early educational activities of our church. 

Before the advent of the public free school, the Brethren 
showed their interest in education by establishing community 
schools below the academic grade. Wherever the Brethren es- 
tablished a colony, there was a necessity for a school to afiford 
at least the rudiments of education. In this the Brethren were 
as active as any other denomination in the rural districts. 
Select schools, as they were called, were supported by sub- 



S. Z. SHARP 313 

scription from the patrons, hence also called subscription 
schools. They had the endorsement of the church and so far 
were related to it. Germantown being the mother church 
in America, and for a long time the center of our church in- 
fluence, the school conducted there under the auspices of the 
church, may answer as a type of all the schools conducted 
under the auspices of the Brethren in the various rural dis- 
tricts where churches had been organized. The fact that this 
school at Germantown was kept in the parsonage connected 
with the church, is evidence of its church relation. The 
teacher. Sister Sarah Douglass, is described as a very efficient 
teacher of rare qualifications of mind and heart. The instruc- 
tion given was not confined to the mere rudiments, but in- 
dustrial and artistic training received attention as well. Sew- 
ing, drawing, and painting were also taught. 

It is true that the Church of the Brethren, as a whole, did 
not own an academy or seminary, neither does it today, yet 
no one dare say she does not foster education and always 
has, except a small fraction once among us and which left 
us because of our educational proclivities. When all the facts 
are once known, it must be conceded that the Church of the 
Brethren has an honorable position in the educational his- 
tory of America. 

It is a matter of deep interest and profound satisfaction 
that so many of our prominent elders and ministers were teach- 
ers in their younger days. Elder Henry Kurtz for many years 
the clerk of our General Conferences because of his scholarly 
attainments, and wielding great influence at our Annual Meet- 
ings, began his work in America in 1817 as a teacher. He was 
the brother who placed the publishing interests of the church 
on a permanent basis. In the Gospel Visitor^ which he pub- 
lished, he did not fail to support higher education. 

James Quinter, co-laborer with Henry Kurtz in the pub- 
lishing business, and wielding as great an influence in our 
General Conference as any other brother in molding sentiment 



314 EARLY EDUCATIONAL ACTIVITIES 

and formulating church poHty, was a teacher in his younger 
days. In 1834, Brother Quinter began to teach school at Lum- 
berville, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, in a building used 
also for church purposes. The school was not a college nor 
an academy, neither was it confined to mere secular instruc- 
tion. The Bible was used in the schoolroom and its moral 
principles were faithfully inculcated into the youthful mind. 
It had the endorsement of the church just as the school taught 
by Sister Douglass had at. Germantown, and was in every sense 
a church community school. 

Peter Nead, another of our veteran preachers and elders, 
taught school in his younger days. He was an honored mem- 
ber of our general church councils, and in other church work, 
as well as a writer and publisher of books. At one time his 
publications could be found in almost every brother's family of 
home. 

Elder Isaac Price of Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, 
was favored with a good education which he employed suc- 
cessfully in teaching, also in publishing a paper. He took 
strong grounds against slavery and became an earnest advocate 
of temperance. As a minister of the Gospel he was greatly be- 
loved in the church and outside. 

No brother in the church filled the office of reading clerk 
oftener than John Wise. He also served on many committees 
sent out by Annual Meeting and for about half a century was 
closely connected with the general work of the church. He 
began teaching at the age of eighteen and taught thirty-two 
terms in the States of Pennsylvania and Texas. 

Enoch Eby has given his service to the church for fifty- 
seven years up to this date. He served on the Standing 
Committee at the General Conference many times and most 
of the time as the Moderator. His educational work consisted 
in teaching four years in Pennsylvania and in being chairman 
of the committee which located McPherson College and in be- 



S. Z. SHARP 315 

ing one of the first three elders who served on the Advisory 
Board of that college. 

Abram H. Cassel of Harleysville, Pa., who did more than 
all other Brethren combined for the collection and preser- 
vation of the history of the Brethren Church, taught eight 
years. 

Frederick Isett of Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, was 
a well-known teacher, and so was Henry Horning of Harleys- 
ville. Jeriah Saylor, a staunch advocate of higher education, 
began in 1840 and taught thirty-six years. Elders Samuel 
Haldeman and Allen Boyer taught in their younger days. 

Dr. P. R. Wrightsman who was instrumental in rescuing 
so many of our Brethren from prison during the Civil War, 
was a teacher more than fifty years ago. 

Among the most promising minister teachers of this period 
was Jacob S. Miller of Bedford County, Pennsylvania, who, 
in 1844, began teaching in his seventeenth year. It is claimed 
that he revolutionized the methods of common-school teach- 
ing in his part of the State and became exceedingly popular. 
He erected a building for a select school, in which he gave both 
religious and secular instruction. Some of his students be- 
came prominent in the Church of the Brethren. Before the 
close of the second term of this school, death snatched him 
away at the age of twenty-five. 

Elders O. W. Miller, Daniel Hays, J. G. Royer and S. Z. 
Sharp all taught before 1860, and after that date took a prom- 
inent part in establishing colleges for the Brethren. 

The interesting fact and that which throws a halo around 
the educational history of our church is, that from its first 
inception and all down the two hundred years of our :church's 
history, so many of our great and influential leaders were, dur- 
ing at least a part of their lives, educators. 

One of the most important undertakings of an educational 
character belonging to this period of individual effort, was the 
collection and preservation of the noted library at Harleysville, 



316 EARLY EDUCATIONAL ACTIVITIES 

Pa., by Abram H. Cassel. In this library was contained the 
principal part of all that pertained to the early history of our 
church and which made the writing of our church history 
possible. This library was important, not only to our own church 
but to entire Colonial America as well. It was the storehouse 
which furnished material for poets, historians, statesmen, pro- 
fessors of universities, and other scholars. It was one of the 
most widely known private libraries in the State and even per- 
sons from Europe consulted this library for rare and valuable 
information. 

In 1880, twenty-eight thousand volumes, pamphlets and 
manuscripts were placed into Mt. Morris College, Illinois. 
Later twelve thousand volumes and four thousand manuscripts 
were placed into Juniata College, Pennsylvania, but Brother 
Cassel could not bear to let all his precious treasures go out 
of his house during his lifetime, but made arrangements to have 
the remainder of his large library transferred to Juniata Col- 
lege after his death, which transfer is now being made, as it 
was his desire that this collection of books should be placed 
where the members of the Brethren Church could have access 
to it. This library and the labors of Abram H. Cassel consti- 
tute an educational factor in the Church of the Brethren de- 
serving a more extended notice than the scope of this paper 
will allow. 

4. The Period of the High School and College. — Sister 
Sarah Douglass, James Quinter, and Jacob Miller had estab- 
lished select schools confined to the English branches and 
common school grade and a large number of our prominent 
elders and ministers had taught in the common schools previous 
to the beginning of this period, but not until April 1, 1861, 
had any member of the Church of the Brethren attempted to 
establish an institution in which was taught Latin, Greek, 
higher mathematics, and advanced sciences. 

Kishacoquillas Seminary was located twelve miles south- 
east of Huntingdon, Pa., the seat of Juniata College. This 



S. Z. SHARP 317 

Seminary was built by the Presbyterians in a strong, wealthy, 
Presbyterian community and was well patronized from the be- 
ginning, but for some cause it failed financially, three times 
during six years, and then was sold by the sheriff and bought 
by S. Z. Sharp. On April 1, 1861, the school was opened 
under the principalship of a brother, with thirty-six students 
which number was soon increased to seventy-two. The prin- 
cipal of this school taught forty-five years, was connected as 
chairman of the faculty or president of four of the Brethren 
colleges, all of which passed through a baptism of fire, but 
in none of which was the fire hotter, nor the difficulties to be 
overcome greater than at this first effort to establish a high 
school at Kishacoquillas. 

On April 11, 1861, Fort Sumpter was fired upon and the 
Civil War was on, with all the horrors and perplexities that a 
civil war entails. One of the assistant teachers in this seminary 
received a commission to raise a company and enter the army. 
Some of the boys left the school and joined his company. 
For four years the school had to cope with the vicissitudes of 
war, but it lived and grew. The high literary standerd estab- 
lished by the Presbyterians, was maintained. Besides a normal 
course, it sustained a ladies' course which was intended to give 
a finished education, and a college preparatory course which 
fitted young men for the sophomore class in college. In ad- 
dition to the English branches, there were taught the higher 
mathematics, advanced sciences, German, Latin, Greek, and 
one year a class in Hebrew. It was in every sense a seminary. 
It was well patronized by the Brethren in Middle Pennsyl- 
vania and from a catalog, taken at random, we may take the 
well-known names of Brumbaugh, Snowberger, Amich, Swi- 
gart, Smith, Zook, Bashore, Rush, Hanawalt, Myers, Custer, 
Bolinger, Spanogle and others. Eld. J. B. Brumbaugh, one 
of the founders and promoters of what became Juniata Col- 
lege, was a student, under S. Z. Sharp, at this Seminary. In 
H, R. Holsinger's History of the Tunkers and the Brethren 



318 EARLY EDUCATIONAL ACTIVITIES 

Church, in alluding to Kishacoquillas Seminary, on page 269 
is found this sentence ; " It continued a few years only for 
want of patronage." The facts are it continued for seventeen 
years and until the Brethren's Normal College at Hunting- 
don was firmly established. Owing to the extreme hard labor 
required of the principal and his wife during the civil war, 
S. Z. Sharp sold it at the end of six years to Professor Martin 
Mohler. Brethren still continued to patronize this school, 
among them Eld. W. J. Swigart, a member of the faculty and 
important factor in Juniata College. 

As a pebble dropped on the surface of a calm, clear lake 
is lost to sight, but creates a wave that widens and radiates un- 
til it reaches the shore, so Kishacoquillas Seminary is lost to 
view, but the impetus it gave to higher education among our 
Brethren may radiate through its students in other schools un- 
til its influence reaches the shore of eternity. 

In October 1861, six months after the opening of the school 
at Kishacoquillas, James Ouinter began his first session at the 
academy in New Vienna, Ohio. He saw the advantage of 
such a school to the Church of the Brethren to save many of 
our most talented young men to the church, hence when the 
opportunity was offered, he took charge of New Vienna 
Academy which had been bought by Brethren in its vicinity. 

In the published life of James Ouinter we have this 
brief paragraph : " In this enterprise he was assisted by O. W. 
Miller who was principal. Sister Clara Haas and daughter Hat- 
tie, and Sister May Craig and Lettie and Rachel Day." The 
school was closed June 27, 1864, on account of the disturbed 
condition of the country caused by the War of the Rebellion. 
Brother Allen Ockemian of Hillsboro, Ohio, was a student of 
this school, but what its general influence was upon the church 
we have not yet been able to ascertain, for this paper, but hope 
to be able yet to do so for another work in contemplation. 

The next attempt to establish a school for the promo- 
tion of higher education among the Brethren, was at Bourbon, 



S. Z. SHARP 319 

Indiana. The sanction of District Meeting was obtained to 
purchase Salem College. .In the catalogue of 1870-71 of this 
institution, we find the names of Jesse Calvert, J. B. Shively, 
Kaylon Heckman, and Paul Kurtz as the officers of the 
Board of Directors and that of O. W. Miller, A. M., as Pres- 
ident of the college. The course of instruction embraced 
five departments: the Academic, Collegiate, Commercial, Mu- 
sical, and of Drawing and Painting. Considerable money 
had been contributed by the Brethren toward the purchase of 
this institution, but not enough to retain the title to it, and its 
friends were obliged to let it lapse again to its original owners 
at a great financial loss to our Brethren. 

In 1872 an educational meeting was held in the Western 
District of Pennsylvania, at Martinsburg. At this meeting it 
was decided to establish a school of a higher grade at Berlin, 
Pa. In this enterprise H. R. Holsinger was a prominent fac- 
tor. The character of the school was to be such as to maintain 
the distinctive features of the Church of the Brethren. The 
plan was to raise $100,000 by subscription, of which no part 
was to be due and payable until the whole amount was sub- 
scribed. Brother Holsinger sent for S. Z. Sharp to accompany 
him on a tour of taking subscriptions and to lecture on the ad- 
vantages of higher education to the church. In less than ten 
days nearly $20,000 was subscribed. Why some Brethren sub- 
scribed so freely may be illustrated by an incident. Passing a 
mill owned by a wealthy brother, not favorable to higher edu- 
cation. Brother Holsinger remarked, " This brother won't sub- 
scribe, but courtesy demands that we offer him the oppor- 
tunity." The brother read the heading of the subscription 
paper and then subscribed $500.00 and with a mischievous 
smile handed the paper to other Brethren present saying, 
" Schreibt hertzhaftig Brueder ihr brauchts niemahls bezahlen." 
(Subscribe heartily brethren, you never need to pay it.) On 
bidding goodbye to Brother Holsinger, we remarked that he 
had incorporated the death sentence of Berlin College into the 



320 EARLY EDUCATIONAL ACTIVITIES 

heading of the subscription paper and so it happened. Sixty- 
thousand dollars were at last subscribed, but the hundred 
thousand never was reached and the project went no further. 

In 1874 Elder Lewis Kimmel, assisted by Howard Mil- 
ler, began a school in the Plum Creek meetinghouse, one mile 
from Elderton, Pa. He gave to the institution the name of 
Plum Creek Normal School. Only three students were en- 
rolled the first day, but the two principals were accomplished 
teachers and the school soon gained a large patronage, and 
in the spring of 1875 had an enrollment of about one hundred, 
a large proportion of whom were teachers and those preparing 
to teach. The character of the school was maintained on 
a high moral and religious plane. Its unfavorable location 
and opposition induced the friends of the school to abandon 
it at the end of four years. 

Dr. A. B. Brumbaugh, H. B. Brumbaugh, J. B. Brum- 
baugh and J. M. Zook were the promoters of the project 
which resulted in establishing what is now Juniata College. 
On April 17, 1876, in a small room twelve by fourteen feet in 
size, on the second story of the Pilgrim building, in Hunting- 
don, Pa., Prof. J. M. Zook began with three students the 
first session of the Brethren's Normal College, and closed 
the fiscal year with fourteen students. 

At the opening of the second year about sixty students 
were enrolled, a large building was secured, and Prof. J. H. 
Brumbaugh and Miss PhebeW. Weakley were added to the 
staff of instructors. 

In 1879, a large and commodious building, named 
Founders' Hall, was erected. Under many difficulties and 
trying circumstances the school gradually grew. The spirit 
of the principal was too great for the frail body in which 
it was encased and on May 10, 1879, it took its flight. The 
work of some men is not measured by years, but by their deeds. 
We had known Brother Zook as one of our students at the 
Millersville State Normal School and learned to love his quiet 



S. Z. SHARP S2l 

ways and persistent energy. The school, however, raUied again 
after this heavy stroke. J. H. Brumbaugh became its princi- 
pal and direct manager and James Quinter was elected Presi- 
dent of the institution, which position he held until his death 
in 1888. The well-known character of Brother Quinter, the 
moral and religious influence he exerted upon the lives and 
character of the students, contributed much toward the suc- 
cess of the school. Much credit is also due to the untiring 
effort of J. B. Brumbaugh in soliciting funds among the 
churches to erect the necessary buildings. 

To Asa Packer of Louisville, Ohio, belongs the credit of 
inspiring the Brethren in the Northeastern District of Ohio to 
take steps toward establishing a college in that State. Broth- 
er Packer in 1877 visited Plum Creek Normal School in 
Pennsylvania with a view of canvassing for means to erect nec- 
essary buildings, but the location did not impress him favorably 
and he returned and labored among the Brethren in his State 
to arouse an interest in favor of building a college. He was 
successful. An enthusiastic meeting was held near Ashland, 
an organization formed and S. Z. Sharp sent for to work up 
the educational interest and raise money to erect a college 
building. 

In Holsinger's History of the Tunkers and the Breth- 
ren Church appears this sentence : " Prof. Sharp, founder 
of Kishacoquillas School, who had meanwhile drifted away 
from the church into a Presbyterian college, was elected presi- 
dent of Ashland College." The facts are S. Z. Sharp never 
drifted away from the Church of the Brethren, but, after reach- 
ing Tennessee began preaching for the Brethren at once and 
organized a church of the Brethren within a year, was ordained 
elder and placed in charge of that church, which position he 
held for ten years and then resigned his charge of the church 
and his professorship in Maryville College, Tennessee, and 
came to Ohio. Ashland was selected as the most suitable lo- 
cation for a college. A beautiful campus of twenty-eight 

21 



322 EARLY EDUCATIONAL ACTIVITIES 

acres was obtained, the citizens of Ashland subscribed ten thou- 
sand dollars. A charter was secured. A well-planned for- 
ty thousand dollar college building and a fifteen thousand 
dollar dormitory erected. School opened in September, 1879, 
with sixty students and closed the school year with one 
hundred and two. Next year it began with an enrollment 
of one hundred and eighty-seven. The president and faculty 
worked together in perfect harmony and all parties pronounced 
the school work a complete success. Unfortunately, how- 
ever, this college started at that period in the history of the 
church when that element in it known as the Progressives came 
to the surface. There were fifteen directors and the Pro- 
gressives claimed the majority and aimed to direct the work 
of the college into their way of thinking. The president de- 
cided to stand by the Conservatives. The directors appointed 
a Methodist minister as vice-president of the college, m viola- 
tion of the provisions of the charter which provided that all 
officers of the institution shall be members of the Brethren or 
Dunker Church. The president resigned. The Conservatives 
and the citizens of the town withdrew their patronage and the 
school attendance dwindled down to ten students. It was 
hard to raise money to keep up the institution and a number 
of both parties became insolvent and the Progressives took 
entire control of the college. 

The projectors for the establishment of Mount Morris 
College were M. S. Newcomer and J. W. Stein, and later D. 
L, Miller. M. S. Newcomer proposed to raise $3,000 on con- 
dition that brethren and friends would raise $3,000 and donate 
it to J. W. Stein. This was done and Rock River Seminary 
property was purchased at the nominal sum of $6,000. The 
buildings consisted of a large, massive, four-story stone build- 
ing used for chapel, recitation and dormitory purposes, and 
another building used as a ladies' hall, with seven acres of 
ground used for a campus. Before the opening of the school, 
D. L. Miller took a third interest in the enterprise, paying 



S. Z. SHARP 323 

M. S. Newcomer $2,000 for the same. Several thousand dol- 
lars more were expended in improvements and the school was 
incorporated under the name of The Mount Morris Seminary 
and Collegiate Institute. 

On August 20, 1879, J. W. Stein as president, assisted 
by an able faculty, opened the school with sixty students. The 
school increased until it reached one hundred and forty-nine 
the first year, and the second year two hundred twelve. From 
the start, the faculty was required to wear the uniform and all 
students to dress with the strictest plainness, and the fact was 
demonstrated that with the proper trustees and faculty a Breth- 
ren's college can be made to flourish and observe strict plain- 
ness in dress. 

September the 3d, 1879, the name of the corporation was 
changed to that of Mount Morris College, and D. L. Miller was 
elected Secretary and Business Manager. In the spring of 
1881, J. W. Stein withdrew from the College and on the 4th 
of June of the same year S. Z. Sharp was elected to fill a 
chair in the faculty and upon the opening of the school, in 
September, filled the chair of Mental and Moral Science and 
assumed the religious duties performed heretofore by J. W. 
Stein and others. After Stein's withdrawal, D. L. Miller was 
elected president and served in the capacity of chairman of thp 
faculty. Later Brother Miller took a trip to Europe and 
Palestine, 1883-4, and the faculty elected S. Z. Sharp as their 
chairman. On Brother Miller's return to America it was 
found that the Brethren at Work, then published at Mount 
Morris, was about to collapse. To save the paper to the Broth- 
erhood, D. L. Miller sold his interest in the college to M. S. 
Newcomer and took charge of the paper. Brother Newcomer 
soon found the financial burden of the college too great for one 
man to bear, sold the institution to a company for a wagon 
factory, but the sale would not stand. The hallowed mem- 
ories that clustered around the " Old Sandstone " as it was 
called, could not so ruthlessly be brushed away. The citizens 



324 EARLY EDUCATIONAL ACTIVITIES 

of the town and the old students made such a strong protest 
that it was decided that the school should go on. To relieve 
Brother Newcomer of the entire care and responsibility and 
at the same time place the college on a broader basis, i\I. S. 
Newcomer, D. N. Wingert, D. L. Miller, J. G. Rover, Jos. 
Amick and S. C. Price obtained a new charter, formed a stock 
company with a capital of $30,000 and the company leased 
the college property to J. G. Royer. 

The desire to educate the Brethren's children and others 
under a high moral and religious influence, in the order and 
doctrine of the church, induced the Brethren in Virginia to 
start a school for instruction in the higher branches. In 1880, 
Prof. D. C. Florv^ opened the Spring Creek Normal School 
with fifteen students. After the second year the school was 
moved to Bridgewater. The attendance now reached fift}'-two. 
Daniel Hays, George Shipman and Geo. B. Holsinger were 
added to the faculty. A commodious three story building was 
erected and the school steadily increased and became Bridge- 
water College. 

In 1882, Brother J. B. Wrightsman founded the Mountain 
Normal School at Hylton, Va., and was its principal four 
years ; then came to Bridgewater and united his influence with 
the school at the latter place. 

jMcPherson College, Kansas, originated in this w^ay: At 
a large and enthusiastic educational meeting held at the time 
of Annual IMeeting of 1887, at Ottawa, Kansas, a resolution 
was passed to build in the State of Kansas a college to be 
owned and controlled by the Brethren in that State. A com- 
mittee was appointed at that meeting to examine college sites 
offered and locate a college. Enoch Eby, J. S. ^lohler, M. T. 
Baer, M. M. Eshelman, and George Lehmer were appointed. 
S. Z. Sharp was then added as an advisory member. The 
city of McPherson was selected as offering the greatest induce- 
ments. A corporation in that city offered to lay off one hundred 
sixty acres of land adjoining the city into lots, sell the lots and 



S. Z. SHARP 325 

donate fifty-six thousand dollars of the proceeds to our Breth- 
ren, fifty thousand dollars of which was to be put into build- 
ings. A large dormitory costing twenty thousand dollars was 
soon erected, and in September, 1888, with S. Z. Sharp as presi- 
dent, school opened with sixty students. The school gained a 
good reputation and increased rapidly in the number of 
students so that at the end of four years it lacked only thirteen 
students of having an attendance of four hundred. The presi- 
dent made a specialty of training teachers, and in 1892 seventy- 
nine per cent of all the teachers of the county had attended 
McPherson College. The president also secured from the 
State Board of Education the authority to issue State certifi- 
cates. 

The Bible department was made prominent and a large 
attendance was always seen at each Bible Institute. 

As soon as the college was properly organized and be- 
fore Annual Meeting had taken any action in reference to an 
Advisory Committee, the trustees of McPherson College chose 
an elder of each of the three State Districts into which the 
State was then divided, as an Advisory Board, and the con- 
nection between the college and the districts was maintained. 
Later the Annual Meeting appointed the Visiting Committee 
which was always respected by the Trustees and Faculty. 

A second charter has been obtained by which the directors 
hold the college property in trust for the Church of the Breth- 
ren who can at any time take possession of its property, the 
college. 

Botetourt Normal College at Daleville, Virginia, began its 
existence in 1890 as a select school in the families of B. F. 
Nininger and J. G. Layman, Prof. L N. H. Beahm being the 
teacher. Next year a building was erected and a charter ob- 
tained enabling it to confer degrees. Beginning with the En- 
glish Scientific and Teachers' Courses, other departments have 
been added, year by year, until it now sustains the various col- 
lege courses. Seventy-five students have been graduated who 



326 EARLY EDUCATIONAL ACTIVITIES 

take a deep interest in their alma mater. It was the design from 
the first that the church should own the school, which was ac- 
complished by the First District of Virginia adopting it. 

In 1891, David Kuns, Henry Kuns, Daniel Houser and 
Samuel Overholtzer purchased in Lordsburg, California, a 
large hotel, said to have cost originally seventy-three thousand 
dollars, furnished it and converted it into a college. The in- 
telligent and moral class of people in the town and surround- 
ing country, the magnificent building and inspiring scenery 
surrounding it, make this an ideal location for a college. The 
first session opened with a fair attendance, but the frequent 
changes of president and members of the faculty, militated 
against its rapid development and the small number of Breth- 
ren living on the coast to patronize the school, made the prog- 
ress slower than in the East. It was the original aim of the 
founders to make this a Brethren's college, which has been ac- 
complished by the District of Southern California and Ari- 
zona adopting it. 

North Manchester College, Indiana, originated in 1895 
by E. S. Young and S. S. Young purchasing in the city of 
North Manchester a college building on a ten acre campus, and 
erecting thereon another large structure known as the Bible 
School Building. Within the next few years the Ladies' Home 
was built. Bible instruction was made a prominent feature 
of the institution. The faculty the first year consisted of Presi- 
dent E. S. Young, E. M. Crouch, Prof. Ulery, Alice King, 
Ella Saylor and Maggie Bixler. The enrollment the first 
session was about seventy-five. During the first four years, 
about twelve hundred students were enrolled. Like other 
colleges, it had its financial perplexities, but the State Dis- 
tricts in Indiana raised money, paid off its indebtednes and 
placed it on a sound financial basis. The State Districts of 
Indiana and that of Southern Illinois have adopted the institu- 
tion as a Brethren's College. 

In 1895, by the efforts of J. M. Neff and N. R. Baker, 



S. Z. SHARP 327 

a college stock company of thirty-four members was formed 
who purchased at Citronelle and Fruitdale, Alabama, a college 
building, a seminary building, a large hotel and three thou- 
sands acres of land. The object was to establish an institution 
of learning that would exert its moral and religious influence 
and attract Brethren to the South. The first session began 
September 2, 1896, and the year closed with a corps of twelve 
instructors and an enrollment of more than one hundred stu- 
dents. 

In 1897 a number of Brethren in Missouri decided to pur- 
chase Plattsburg College with a view of educating and retaining 
members' children in the church and also educating young 
Brethren for the ministry and in this way build up the 
churches. Trustees were selected, the college property bought 
and deeded in trust to the State Districts of Missouri and State 
Districts adjoining. In September of the same year, the first 
session opened with S. Z. Sharp, and five assistant instructors, 
and the year closed with an enrollment of one hundred and 
six students. 

Some persons in the church and some outside who at first 
seemed to favor the school and desired to control it, but failed, 
now began to oppose it with all their might. After a dormi- 
tory had been built, one student graduated in the college course, 
two classes of six students each in the academic course, a num- 
ber in the commercial, and a number of bright young breth- 
ren had been educated who afterward were elected to the min- 
istry, the management decided, on account of the strong op- 
position, to close the school. The Brethren still hold the prop- 
erty. 

On November 29, 1898, a meeting was held in the Church 
of the Brethren in the city of Reading, Pennsylvania, to con- 
sider the advisability of starting a Brethren's College in East- 
ern Pennsylvania. The sentiment was favorable to the project 
and a committee of five was appointed to examine locations 
offered and report at next meeting which was held at Elizabeth- 



328 EARLY EDUCATIONAL ACTIVITIES 

town, April 8, 1899, where the committee was increased to 
ten. This committee on May 26, 1899, decided in favor of 
EHzabethtown as the location for the proposed college. The 
first session opened November 13, 1900, with I. N. H. Beahm as 
president, assisted by G. N. Falkenstein, Elizabeth Meyer and 
J. A. Seese. Enrollment first day, six, first term twenty-seven, 
but it grew until it has reached nearly two hundred students. 
The money for two large college buildings and other college 
property (about sixty thousand dollars) was raised by dona- 
tions. The charter places the college property into the hands 
of the Brethren of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania and 
is held in trust for them by a Board of Trustees. 

After losing Ashland College, Ohio, Brethren in the 
Northeastern District of Ohio for a long time desired a col- 
lege in their district to which they could entrust their children 
with safety. In 1899 Smithville Collegiate Institute was es- 
tablished, with Quincy Leckrone as president, and six as- 
sistants. Collegiate, Normal and Bible Departments were sus- 
tained. 

On April, 1899, a petition was presented to the Eastern 
District of Mar}'land, asking that steps be taken toward es- 
tablishing a Brethren's school in that district for the purpose of 
saving the Brethren's children to the church and promoting its 
welfare. The petition was granted. Union Bridge was se- 
lected as a location and Maryland Collegiate Institute or- 
ganized. The first session opened in November of the same 
year, with W. M. Wine as principal, assisted by S. D. Sigler 
and E. S. Crumpacker. Next year about sixteen thousand dol- 
lars were expended in the erection of buildings. Improve- 
ments have been made until the sum of about fifty thousand 
dollars has been expended. The school was characterized as 
a Brethren's school. Some assistance is given to student 
ministers. 

The Bible Institute at Canton, Ohio, was organized in 



S. Z. SHARP 329 

1904, with E. S. Young as principal, assisted by H. C. Ainslee, 
T. S. Moherman, Edson Ulery, Elsie and Geo. Kiefavor. 

Bethany Bible School, Chicago, Illinois, was opened in 
October 3, 1905, by A. C. Wieand and E. B. Hoff. Number 
of students first term twenty-one. 

Such is a bare outline of the educational activities during, 
(1) the dawn of the Church of the Brethren, (2) the reli- 
gious education during the period of its organization, (3) 
the period of educational activity by individual effort, and (4) 
the origin of each high school and college under the auspices 
of Brethren. In this effort the fact has been revealed that 
enough material has been furnished for an educational history 
of the Brethren as large as any history of the Brethren ever 
written. 




John S. Flory 



Part Two 
Present Educational Activities 

By John S. Flory 

We have been reminded of the splendid interest taken by 
our people in the cause of education, in the early history of the 
church. It ought to be a source of great satisfaction to us that 
during the first three quarters of a century of our existence as 
a distinct organization our Brethren were among the lead- 
ing advocates of higher education, as well as of other philan- 
thropic and public-spirited enterprises, in this country. In 
these respects the Dunker Church was perhaps inferior to 
none in the colonies. This excellent beginning in our denom- 
inational history should be a source of encouragement to those 
among us who have been working to bring about, to a still 
greater extent, a similar state of affairs in our own time. 

We must ever regret, in some respects at least, that con- 
ditions arose in which this interest and activity were not kept 
up. Could the educational work of the church have gone for- 
ward, steadily developing from the condition to which it had 
arrived at the beginning of the Revolutionary War, we would 
today be a somewhat different people from what we are. We 
would almost certainly have at least several respectable uni- 
versities among us, and the reflex of a continuous influence of 
literary culture and scholarship could not have been without 
its effect upon our denominational life. Of course the various 
ways in which this would have modified us as a people, it is 
not our purpose now to examine. 

Our present educational activities began less than a third 
of a century ago. It is true that still earlier efforts were as 

331 



332 PRESENT EDUCATIONAL ACTIVITIES 

remote as the middle of the nineteenth century, but they were 
sporadic and came to naught because the church was not yet 
ready to appreciate and encourage them. The chief centers 
of this earHer work were Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia, 
and at places not very remote from those in which, a little 
later, it found a secure footing. 

The first thing to which I wish to direct your attention 
especially, this evening, is the nature of our educational ideal 
when our present work began, a third of a century ago. What 
was our standard of an educational institution at that time? 
And what did we hope and expect to realize from it? Did we 
have a fixed and positive object in view? Or were we dom- 
inated merely by a vague notion of an indefinite something that 
was wanting in our religious life and experience, and hoped 
to find a panacea for all of our ailments in the magic word, 
Education ? 

It is possible that this last consideration was not without 
its influence, as the real value of an education is very much 
misjudged by many of our people today. Yet I think there is 
no doubt that at least one very positive object was sought to 
be attained. This was the saving of our young people for the 
church. Repeated instances of young men from Brethren 
homes going away to State or undenominational institutions, 
or to those of other denominations, and so being lost to the 
church if not to the cause of Christianity, forced the con- 
viction that the church must either provide for the education 
of her young people or expect to lose them. With this thought 
foremost, our earliest institutions that have survived were es- 
tablished. And this remains as one of the burning questions 
of the church today, not only as regards our educational work, 
but as regards our church work at large. 

The way in which the school was to aid in saving the 
young folks for the church was chiefly by guarding their en- 
vironments. The schools were expected to provide an educa- 
tional home for the young of Brethren families and others 



JOHN S. FLORY 333 

where they could pursue their work under guarded moral and 
religious restrictions, without being subjected to the tempta- 
tions incident to student life generally. The schools were 
thus to provide for the secular education under a guarded 
moral and spiritual environment. No provision was made for 
direct, positive religious instruction, except such as was prac- 
ticed in any exemplary home or Christian community, as family 
worship, Sunday schools and the like. 

" Bible Departments " were unknown in the early days of 
our older colleges. They came as an after-thought, as a pro- 
cess of development. Avowedly religious and strictly denomi- 
national, our earliest schools nevertheless sought to accom- 
plish their religious object by a sort of moral suasion. Theolog- 
ical or biblical courses, such as are pursued in practically 
all of our schools today would, a quarter of a century ago, have 
encountered fierce opposition. To teach the Bible was all right, 
but to teach about the Bible was looked upon with the gravest 
suspicion. 

These are the conditions that prevailed in Virginia two 
score years ago. But they were not peculiar to Virginia, as I 
am told that substantially the same ideas obtained in Penn- 
sylvania and Illinois, the two other centers of early educational 
activity among us. A practical unanimity of sentiment pre- 
vailed among the promoters of our educational work at that 
time, but the real place of religious instruction in a liberal 
education had not yet been properly determined. 

While this was the ideal with which our school work be- 
gan, it was not many years until the method, at least, of at- 
taining' this ideal was changed. After our educational ma- 
chinery had been got to run with some degree of smoothness, 
one of the first departments to be organized was the Bible 
school. This was done in response to the deeply felt purpose 
that brought the schools into existence, and marks the first 
departure from the strictly academic and business school basis 
with which the work started. 



334 PRESENT EDUCATIONAL ACTrVITIES 

From very small and simple beginnings, these Bible 
schools have grown to be among the most popular depart- 
ments in some of our colleges. The courses of instruction are 
definitely outlined, and in most instances one or more teachers 
are maintained exclusively for this work. While this is true, 
it is apparent to everyone at all conversant with our school 
situation that in these departments our standards are probably 
less fixed than in any other. There has been a sort of Klondike 
rush (on a small scale), into our Bible department in recent 
years, and while the schools are not yet over-crowded exactly, 
this eagerness has brought into these departments students of all 
grades of preparation and want of preparation. And being with- 
out definite standards, the well prepared, the poorly prepared, 
and the unprepared are all, as a rule, allowed to enter on sub- 
stantially the same basis and are admitted to the same classes. 
I say this with all deference to our Bible schools, as they have 
been compelled to do the best they could and not always what 
they would have liked. 

While this is the situation that obtains today, to a large 
extent, there is yet one later stage in the evolution of our 
educational ideal. This is the thought that the goal of our edu- 
cational work must be the production of scholars. We are 
getting away from the idea that the end of education is merely 
practical, and is to be measured in money value. If our col- 
leges and schools had no higher mission than to prepare our 
young people to get better salaried positions and easier places 
in the world, we might as well close their doors. And we as 
a people are beginning to realize this. We are coming to see 
that education is power, and that it is less valuable for what it 
enables one to know than for. what it enables him to do. 

Consciousness of this fact is bringing young men and 
women into the collegiate departments of our colleges in in- 
creasing numbers year by year. And in this lies the hope of 
our school work. These are men and women who, in the next 
generation, will be the independent thinkers, the leaders of 



JOHN S. FLORY 335 

thought and opinion. Their thoroughly trained intellects, to- 
gether with an intelligent understanding of God's Word will 
make them powers in the world such as the Brethren Church 
has seldom if ever known. The constantly increasing facilities 
among us for biblical instruction and for the cultivation of the 
devotional nature will give their lives a poise and direction that 
must count for the highest good. 

The greatest power in the world is a great Christian 
scholar. A thoroughly disciplined intellect trained to a master 
over the problems of life coupled to a soul all aglow with the 
raptures of divine fervor, constitutes a force second only to the 
divine. Such a life is far more than human. It has the power 
to lay natural forces under contribution, to unlock the arcana 
of divine ministry, yes, to lay hold on divine power itself. 
Such men and women it is the mission of our colleges to pro- 
duce. By the help of God and wise directions, such men and 
women they will produce. 

In working out this educational ideal, we have progressed 
naturally, logically, and reasonably. We have never deviated 
from our original purpose of saving our young people for the 
church. But we have modified our methods of work at the 
various stages, in accordance with our clearer understanding 
of the best way to realize this ideal. And the result has been 
that so far as polity and educational standards are concerned, 
and the adaptation of these to our present church needs, the 
development of our educational work is full of promise and en- 
couragement. 

I have referred to the production of Christian scholarship 
as the goal of our educational work. This I can conceive to be 
the loadstar towards which the main current of our educational 
endeavor is tending. The highest product that it is possible 
for our colleges to turn out will be a high type of scholastic 
attainment coupled with a noble and true type of Christian 
manhood and womanhood. In this we shall realize our highest 



336 PRESENT EDUCATIONAL ACTIVITIES 

hopes and the fullest fruition of our efforts along academic 
lines. 

It must be apparent to every thoughtful person, however, 
that a very small proportion of those who come under the tui- 
tion of our various colleges will ever attain a high degree of 
scholarship. While those who do will have it in their power 
to become the noblest of God's creatures, yet the greatest work 
of our schools, after all, will be to reach the people en masse, 
and to infuse the glow of increased intelligence, richer culture 
and deeper spirituality into the rank and file of the church. 

You have gone out under the open sky on a clear, cloud- 
less night. The sun had long since ceased to send his rays back 
over the western horizon, and the pale-faced moon had hidden 
her countenance from the face of mother earth. All around 
you nature lay asleep, lit up only by an indistinct glimmer 
that enabled you to distinguish the larger objects. Above you 
arched the great dome of heaven, studded with innumerable 
starry jets and transforming the world of nature in- 
to an enchanted fairyland, by the magic of its mellow light. 
The objects, as they present themselves to your indistinct 
vision, are vested with a tinge of romance, the peculiar effect 
of starlight. This light of the stars seems to come from the 
countless shining points that flicker and twinkle so beautifully 
above you, yet the astronomer will tell you that nine-tenths of 
it comes from other stars so remote as to be invisible to the 
naked eye and whose very existence you at the time do not even 
suspect. 

Of the thousands of stars visible to the naked eye, scarcely 
more than a dozen are of the first magnitude. If, then, the 
number of scholars of the first rank that our colleges turn out 
is small, this can hardly be regarded as strange or unexpected. 
These occasional brilliant lights, together with all others that 
are more or less in the public eye, make up but a comparatively 
small part of the forces and stamina that represents the real 
•trength of the church. As leaders and workers these are the 



JOHN S. FLORY 337 

" salt of the earth," the element that is indispensable to prog- 
ress. But our educational system will come far short of its 
mission so long as it does not penetrate to all classes and con- 
ditions of men. 

Have you ever thought that of the twenty thousand mem- 
bers of the Brethren Church, who are of what may be denomi- 
nated " college age," less than one-tenth are in any of our insti- 
tutions of learning? And do you know that of this compara- 
tively small number scarcely one-tenth are actually doing col- 
lege work? While our ideal, therefore, is a high standard of 
college education, today only one out of one hundred of those 
who by natural inheritance should claim this high privilege is 
actually enjoying it. 

I state these concrete facts to call attention to the situa- 
tion as it exists. Our schools are not yet doing the work des- 
tined for them. 

The masses of our people as yet feel but faintly the in- 
spiration that comes from this higher culture. And not until our 
schools are placed on a financial basis so that they can open 
their doors to all who come, regardless of means, station or 
previous opportunity, will they be able to do the work re- 
quired at their hands. 

The peculiar conditions surrounding our school work have 
made it impossible to organize it as closely as would have been 
desirable. We have been compelled to distribute our efforts 
broadly over a variety of fields, with but meager support in 
each, and with indifferent facilities for carrying it on. It is 
only natural, therefore, that our success thus far should have 
been but partial. 

One thing that our schools should work for is a greater 
concentration of their efforts. This is not only a matter of 
working out present plans — it is a matter of organization. We 
have lost a great deal by not being able to organize our 
school work on a general system from the beginning. But ow- 
ing to the peculiar circumstances surrounding us, our schools 

22 



338 PRESENT EDUCATIONAL ACTIVITIES 

have sprung up as stra}^ or volunteer plants, one by one, with- 
out particular regard ofttimes for localit}- of form, and the only 
way to shape them into instruments of .comeliness and power, 
is by careful pruning and training. 

If we could have had a system from the beginning, instead 
of having merely a dozen schools, each of which is trying to 
maintain from five to eight distinct departments, we might 
have a number of separate schools, each doing a special kind of 
work and offering as good facilities geographically as we now 
enjoy, while at the same time offering far better facilities in 
the way of equipment and general proficiency. But the way 
in which our schools arose made this impossible, as we have 
seen. 

Our school work has, therefore, been attended by a great 
deal of educational waste. It is a laudable ambition for any 
one of our schools to become a college and maintain a high 
standard of college work, provided that there is a real de- 
mand for such work, and the institution is equipped and able 
to do it. But we should not lose sight of the fact that the four 
or five institutions we now have doing this grade of work are 
doing it at a great financial sacrifice, and that all the college 
work now being done in all our institutions would not main- 
tain one good college. But since we have these institutions 
and have them distributed in easy stages from Virginia to 
Kansas, our problem in regard to this question is to develop 
them and build them up, stop the leakages, and, before start- 
ing any others, put what we have on a firm financial basis. 

Whatever difficulties have attended our educational efforts, 
and they have been numerous, have been overcome chiefly 
by our adherence to one general principle. Whether con- 
sciously or not, our school work from the Atlantic to the Pa- 
cific has been dominated by the one controlling purpose of 
building character. This is true, I am persuaded, without any 
concerted actions on the part of our educators, but is due to 
the oneness of sentiment that has prevailed among us as to the 



JOHN S. FLORY 339 

highest object to be obtained in education. If I may be per- 
mitted the statement, I would say that our educational in- 
stitutions exist rather for the purpose of making men and wom- 
en than to produce great scholars. 

I have already pointed out the worth of scholarship and 
the fact that our highest ideals cannot be realized without it, 
yet since we have had to choose between the two, to some ex- 
tent, in these early days of our educational work, we have been 
eminently wise in putting character building first. Indeed 
any other course would have been suicidal. A cultured head 
without a cultivated heart is dangerous. A well-trained mind 
housed in a body racked with pain and disease is useless, and 
I am glad to believe that the educational principle that has 
grown up among us is recognizing the necessity of an all-round 
culture — a well-trained mind, a cultured heart, and a strong 
and vigorous body. The complete harmonizing of these lines 
of development will result in the completest product that an 
educational institution can produce. May it be the mission of 
the Brethren colleges to work out this perfect harmony, and so 
attain to the coveted position of producing the highest type of 
manhood to be found in the world. 



Chapter Thirteen 
The Publications of the Church 




H. B, Brumbaugh 



Chapter Thirteen 
History of Growth and Development 

By H. B. Brumbaugh 

As we begin to write out this history we have distinctly 
before us two periods. The first, beginning with the early 
organization of the Brethren Church, or about the year 1738, 
reaching its high tide mark some twenty years later, after 
which the business gradually passed into other hands who were 
not members of the church. 

It would be interesting to follow up the history and show 
when the decline in the interest of the publishing business, on 
the part of our people, began, and the cause of it. Much of it, 
no doubt, can be accounted for on account of our people mov- 
ing out of the city into the country, and thus becoming more 
rural in their living, thinking and doing. 

As this period of the church's publishing interest has 
been pretty fully given by our church historians, we will leave 
that and take up the second period. 

This period showed itself in its embryo state, in the year 
1840, through the energy, push and foresight of Elder Henry 
Kurtz, a German scholar of large literary ability, who felt that 
if the church was to become a power for good, the power of the 
press must be taken advantage of. It was the beginning of 
a revival of the publishing interests of the church, lost in its 
trend from the city life out into the rural districts. With 
a loss in educational advantage is followed a loss of interest in 
reading and the publishing of papers and books. And on the 
entering the church of men of education and literary ability, 
we have a return of the desire to use the advantages offered 

343 



344 CHURCH PUBLICATIONS 

by the press to aid in the promotion of Bible truths into the 
minds and hearts of the people. 

On the first presentation to the church of the wish of 
Elder Kurtz to publish a religious paper, it was received with 
great caution and considerable fear on the part of many. On 
the other hand there were quite a few that were favorable to the 
enterprise, so that it required considerable time, patience and 
perseverance to get the sense of the church in reference to it, 
and a permit to go ahead. 

In 1850 we have the following in regard to it : 
Whether there is any danger to be apprehended from pub- 
lishing a paper among us? This subject to lay over until next 
Annual Meeting. 

At Annual Meeting of 1851, we have another request with 
this answer given : " Considered that we will not forbid 
Brother Henry Kurtz to go on with his paper for one year; 
and that all the Brethren or churches will impartially examine 
the Gospel Visitor and if found wrong or injurious, let them 
send in their objections at the next Annual Meeting." As the 
result of this decision the church received the first number of 
its first paper, The Monthly Gospel Visitor, printed and pub- 
lished on a springhouse loft, near Poland, Ohio, by Henry 
Kurtz, dated April 1, 1851. Again the subject came before the 
Annual Meeting of 1852 as to its continuance, and it was 
decided : 

That inasmuch as there is a diversity of opinion upon the sub- 
ject — some in favor and others opposed — we cannot forbid its 
publication at this time, and hope that those Brethren opposed to 
it will exercise forbearance, and let it stand or fall on its own 
merits. 

And finally in 1853 we have the following : 
Concerning the Gospel Visitor: Inasmuch as the Gospel Visi- 
tor is a private undertaking of its editor, we unanimously conclude 
that this Meeting should not any further interfere with it. 

This ended for the time being, the discussions as to the 
privilege of church members publishing a religious paper. 



H. B. BRUMBAUGH 345 

And, as these restriction were removed the paper grew rapidly 
in favor, with a continual growth in circulation. But still there 
was a goodly number of the Brethren who entertained grave 
fears as to the results that would follow the publishing of dif- 
ferent views, as held by some, on some of the points in refer- 
ence to :church forms and government and work, and there- 
fore, continued to oppose the publication. 

In June of 1856, Elder James Quinter connected himself 
with the Gospel Visitor as Associate Editor. This addition 
to the editorial staff was greatly appreciated by the patrons 
of the paper, and it continued to grow in favor in the minds 
of the more aggressive members of the church. 

In the year 1864, because of the growing infirmities of 
age, Elder Henry Kurtz withdrew from the activities of the 
publishing business, turning it over, by lease, to his son, H. J. 
Kurtz and Elder James Quinter, who now became the acting 
editor. 

The Christian Family Companion. 
Because of the growing interest in the paper, there was 
being a pressure made on the publishers, on the part of the 
patrons, to have it issued more frequently. Some, twice a 
month and others weekly. But the proprietors did not see 
their way clear, at that time, to make the change asked for. 
Prior to this. Brother H. R. Holsinger had been, an apprentice 
or assistant in the office. And from what he learned while 
there he became convinced that there was an opening for a 
weekly religious church paper, and he labored to persuade 
the publishers of the Visitor to change it to a weekly, and give 
him a place on the editorial stafif. As they did not see their 
way to do this, he then left the office and returned to his 
home in Pennsylvania, and in the spring of 1863, he established 
a newspaper office in Tyrone, Pennsylvania, and published the 
Tyrone Herald in the interests of the Republican party. But 
as politics was not in harmony with his idea of what should 



346 CHURCH PUBLICATIONS 

be his life work, he turned his thoughts to the publishing of a 
weekly religious paper, so that on May the 10th, 1864, he 
published a specimen number of the Christian Family Com- 
panion. Having presented the following request to the District 
Meeting of Middle Pennsylvania, held at the Spring Run 
church, March 28, 29, 1864: 

Will this meeting approve of the proposition of Brother 
H. R. Holsinger to publish a religious paper? Answer — He may 
go on at his own discretion. 

On October 4, 1864, he published a second specimen num- 
ber. The object of putting out these specimen numbers was 
to give the expected patrons some idea of the form, size, and 
general character of the proposed paper. We can best set forth 
the character and purpose of the paper by giving some ex- 
tracts from the introduction: 

As to purpose we have: 

First — to furnish my brethren with a weekly journal which 
shall be free from all vanity, fiction, and falsehood, and, at the 
same time, give them all the information in regard to the " signs 
of the times" that may be necessary to their spiritual edification 
or physical welfare, etc. 

Second — By affording a medium for the free discussion of all 
subjects of importance upon which there may not be a unity of 
opinion. 

Third — By giving wholesome instruction and kindly admoni- 
tion not only from my own pen, but by contributions and selec- 
tions from others. 

Fourth — By interesting church news through which the entire 
Brotherhood may become acquainted, in a short time, with any 
success or reverses which may befall any branch of the church, 
or individual member, thereby extending our opportunities for 
showing our sympathy or extending our charities. 

Though the general character of the paper gave good 
satisfaction, and received a very encouraging financial sup- 
port, the " Open Rostrum " idea introduced, caused dissatis- 
faction and a growing trouble. Not so much on account of 
the " Open Rostrum " granted, as the abuse made of it by 



H. B. BRUMBAUGH 347 

indiscreet writers who took advantage of the privilege, to in- 
troduce harmful discussions and the using of unkind personali- 
ties. 

The Pilgrim. 

So pronounced had the dissatisfaction grown that there 
seemed to be a demand for another paper to be started on a 
more conservative basis. And as a result, on January 1, 1870, 
the first number of The Pilgrim was published. This was an 
eight page weekly, the same size of the Christian Family Com- 
panion, edited and published by Brethren H. B. and J. B. 
Brumbaugh, with Elder George Brumbaugh as associate editor, 
with its office at James Creek, Pennsylvania, at one dollar per 
year. 

The object and purpose of this new candidate for patron- 
age is not clearly stated in the introduction beyond this state- 
ment: 

Our object is to labor for the good of all. First, for the good 
of the Church, the edification and encouragement of her mem- 
bers, the betterment of her ministry and the enlargement of her 
borders. 

Secondly, for our children and the rising generation. 

Thirdly, for the sinner or those who are without hope and God 
in the world . . . The Pilgrim will be published with the best 
design on our part, to aid in the great work of disseminating the 
truth and peace among the Brethren. 

While it was aggressive and always stood on the side of 
liberal views, it did it in a way not to arouse antagonism or to 
engender strife among the schurch people, and, because of this 
milder position taken, it was well received and soon gained 
a very encouraging circulation. At the beginning of the second 
year, it was enlarged to sixteen pages and the price per year 
was raised to one dollar and twenty-five cents. 

The Pious Youth. 
In the same year (1870) the first number of a juvenile 
paper was published by H. R. Holsinger, in connection with the 



348 CHURCH PUBLICATIONS 

Christian Family Companion at Tyrone. The Pious Youth 
was a sixteen page weekly, at one dollar per year. 

The object of this paper was to supply our youth with 
reading matter adapted to their special wants, in language that 
would be pure, and in ways that would be interesting and 
helpful. The paper was well received, grew in favor and was 
a helpful addition to our church literature, especially along 
the lines of Sunday-school work, which, at this time, had al- 
ready taken a deep hold upon the minds and hearts of our 
people in many of the churches throughout the Brotherhood. 

The Golden Dawn. 

This was a small thirty-two page monthly magazine pub- 
lished by the Brumbaugh Bros, at Huntingdon, Pa., at $1.00 
per year and edited by H. B. Brumbaugh and Wealthy A. 
Clarke. 

Its purpose was for the development and encouragement 
of our young members and people along religious and educa- 
tional lines. And though its mechanical execution was of 
a high standard, and it was carefully edited, the patronage 
given to it did not justify its continuance, and it was suspended 
at the close of the first year. 

The Vindicator. 

But while these newer activities were receiving greater in- 
terest on the part of many of our members, to others they were 
looked upon as innovations that should be seriously noted and 
warned against. And as an outgrowth of this feeling The 
Vindicator, an eight-page monthly was started by Elder Samuel 
Kinsey, assisted by the advice and counsels of Brethren Peter 
Nead, Daniel Miller, Abram Flory, D. Saylor, Daniel Brower 
and others. It was published at Dayton, Ohio, at one dollar per 
year. The purpose of the paper can best be told by giving a 
few extracts from the introduction in Number I of Volume I, 
March 1, 1870. 



H. B. BRUMBAUGH 349 

We have, for several years, upon noticing the state and drift 
of our church, and the condition of affairs generally, had much 
thought with regard to the propriety and necessity of publishing 
a small paper for the use and benefit of the church, and we have 
at last, after consulting some of our old experienced fathers in 
the church, consented, by their assistance, to attempt the work. 
We do this with a degree of reluctance, yet prompted, as we trust 
we are, from a sense of duty, and the interest we feel in a pure 
and undefiled religion, we have concluded to engage in the work. 
. . . It may seem useless to issue another paper; seeing that 
there are already several publications issued by the Brethren, but, 
our object in this matter — to keep us in the " wilderness," if you 
can gather the idea — see Revelation 12th chapter — will be approved 
by the Brethren, we think, when understood. We believe that 
humility, simplicity, and self-denial are among the brightest graces 
that characterize our Fraternity: And for these we feel to con- 
tend (for we think we see the need of it) earnestly and faithfully. 
And in doing so we feel willing to apply our little might and in- 
fluence, as well as we can, in wielding the sword ingeniously and 
powerfully, yet friendly and kindly against the popular inventions, 
as well as the modern improvements continually attempted to be 
made upon the simple doctrine taught by the Savior. Our ob- 
ject is to labor against all such innovations. To contend for the 
order, of the Brethren as it has been established. To furnish the 
many scattered brethren and churches with all necessary informa- 
tion with regard to church government. To labor against pride 
in' all its various shapes and forms; together with any matters of 
general interest, or of use and benefit to the church, etc. . . . 
We hope that we may not be over strenuous, or too self-de- 
termined in our ways, but in love, humbly contend for that which 
may have a tendency to subdue within us, a proud and exalted 
spirit. 

During the years 1881 and 1882 a number of brethren and 
sisters separated from the general Brotherhood, and were 
known as the " Old Order Brethren," but among themselves as 
" The Old German Baptist Brethren," and the Vindicator was 
made the accepted organ of that ;church, and so continued up 
to the present, under the charge of the following editors and 
publishers: Samuel Kinsey to 1883; Joseph I. Cover from 
1883 to 1889 ; Henry and John Garber from 1889 to 1894. The 



350 CHURCH PUBLICATIONS 

Vindicator committee from 1894 to the present, with J. M. 
Kimmel, as its agent and pubHsher. 

The Christian Family Companion and Gospel Visitor. 

In 1873 the first number of The Christian Family Com- 
panion and Gospel Visitor was pubHshed, as a consoHdation of 
the two papers, by Elder James Quinter, who, in the above- 
named year bought J. H. Kurtz's interest in the Gospel Visitor 
and, also, at the same time, bought the Christian Family Com- 
panion from H. R. Holsinger. These two papers were then 
merged into a paper bearing the names of both and was pub- 
lished under this double name for two years. 

The Primitive Christian 

On January 4, 1876, the first number of the same paper 
was published under the above name. For this change the 
editor says: 

The name being too long to be used conveniently and also too 
long to suit the form of our paper, we came to the conclusion, 
after considerable reflection, to adopt the name of " Primitive Chris- 
tian " as the name of our paper. We did this, not because we are 
fond of changes, but for convenience. So that the " Primitive 
Christian " is, in no sense, a new paper, but a continuance of the 
" Family Companion and Gospel Visitor." 

It should be noted that during these two years Elder J. 
W. Beer was Associate Editor of the Primitive Christian and 
Family Companion then published at Meyersdale, Pa., and so 
continued up to the consolidation with the Pilgrim, having at 
this time removed to Huntingdon, Pa., and further, he con- 
tinued with the consolidation for a number of years. 

The Young Disciple. 
On January 7, 1876, the first number of The Young Dis- 
ciple was issued, a sixteen-page monthly, but printed in four 
parts so as to make a paper for each week. It was published at 
Huntingdon, Pa., by H. B. and J. B. Brumbaugh and edited by 
Sister Wealthy A. Clark. As the editor says: 



H. B. BRUMBAUGH 351 

The object in placing the " Young Disciple " before the world 
is to do good. We believe a great work can be accomplished in 
this direction, if the proper effort is made. Our young are too 
much neglected, and, as a natural result, they are rapidly drifting 
into the current of the world and away from the church. 

In addition to supplying our young people wl<ih care- 
fully selected and safe reading matter, it was also the pub- 
lishers' purpose to supply our Sunday schools with suit- 
able papers for distribution, and to this end it was pub- 
lished in four parts, thus giving a paper for each Sun- 
day. 

The paper was received favorably by the church and con- 
tinued to grow in circulation until the year 1880, when it was 
consolidated with Our Sunday School, a paper prepared more 
especially for our Sunday schools by Elder S. Z. Sharp, and 
published at Ashland, Ohio. 

Consolidation. 

On October the 31st, 1876, a consolidation was effected be- 
tween the publishers of the Primitive Christian and The Pil- 
grim, the one side of the combined paper being set in type 
at Meyersdale, the former home of the Primitive Christian 
and then removed to Huntingdon, the home of the Pilgrim, 
where the other side was set up and then published as the 
Primitive Christian and Pilgrim. After this, Huntingdon was 
made the place of publication of the consolidated paper, on ac- 
count of it being a larger place and offering more advantages 
for business, railroad conveniences, and mailing facilities. This 
also necessitated Elder James Quinter and family and Elder 
J. W. Beer and family to move to Huntingdon, where Elder 
Quinter continued to live up to the time of his decease. 

The Brethren's Messenger. 

In the beginning of this same year, 1876, Brother J. T. 

Myers of Germantown, Pa., began the publication of The 

Brethren's Messenger, part English and part German. It was 

started as a monthly for the purpose of supplying our German 



352 CHURCH PUBLICATIONS 

members with what seemed to be an apparent need, a paper that 
they could read in their own tongue and thus be helpful to 
them, as a medium through which they could give expression 
of their religious convictions, and also become better acquaint- 
ed with each other. But the movement did not prove as 
promising as was expected, and as a result we have in the 
Primitive Christain of August 22, 1876, the following notice: 

The Brethren at Work. 

Brother J. T. Myers of Germantown, Pa., has completed ar- 
rangements to move the "Brethren's Messenger" to Lanark, Illi- 
nois. And instead of the " Messenger" being printed part in English 
and part in German, two papers will be published — one a weekly 
in English, entitled " The Brethren At Work," price, prepaid, $1.35 
per annum; and the other, a German Monthly, entitled, " Der 
Bruderbote," price .75 per annum, both of which will be edited and 
published by J. H. Moore, J. T. Myers and M. M. Eshleman. As- 
sociate Editors R. H. Miller, J. W. Stein, and Daniel Vaniman. 
Associate editress Mattie A. Lear. 

The Brethren at Work was about the same size and form 
as the Primitive Christian, thus giving the Brotherhood two 
weekly papers, one east and one west, as competitive candi- 
dates for patronage. But as these two papers pursued about 
the same course, and advocated the same church policy, there 
was no friction between them, and for the time being the press 
ceased to be a disturbing element in the church. 

Der Bruderbote. 
The German paper gotten up and published for the special 
good of our German Brethren, and though well edited, was 
not sufficiently patronized to justify the continuation of its 
publication and it was suspended. And, to the regret of many 
of our prominent members, with this suspension the church 
sustained a great loss in maintaining the language and litera- 
ture of its founders. Since here we have learned that the 
Bruderbote was continued at Grundy Center, Iowa, for four- 
teen years. 



H. B. BRUMBAUGH 353 

The Progressive Christian. 

In the fall of 1878, Elders J. W. Beer and H. R. Holsinger 
commenced the publication of the Progressive Christian at 
Berlin, Pennsylvania. It was published weekly in newspaper 
form. Its avowed purpose was to advocate progressive meas- 
ures, and, as they saw them, needed reforms. And as some of 
the things advocated were in advance of existing conditions, 
the paper fell under the judgment of the church and Annual 
Conference to such an extent that the expected support was not 
forthcoming. As to the cause of their failure in getting the 
hoped-for approval the editors could not agree. Brother Beer 
thought that the paper was conducted on too radical a spirit, 
while Brother Holsinger thought that it ought to be made more 
radically progressive, insomuch as there was no room for the 
expressions of such views in any of the conservative papers. 
The end of the discussion was that Brother Holsinger sold out 
to Brother Beer, who took charge and run the paper after his 
own ideas. But it appears that Brother Beer also failed in 
gaining a paying patronage, and, at the close of 1879, discon- 
tinued its publication. The paper then lay dead until May, 
1880, when it was resurrected by Brother Howard Miller, and 
conducted in the name of Holsinger and Miller. 

After a few months Brother Howard Miller withdrew 
from the editorship and Brother Holsinger became the editor 
and proprietor, and so continued up until the time of the 
division, when it became the organ of the Progressive Breth- 
ren, and was removed to Ashland, Ohio, and the name changed 
to The Brethren's Evangelist. 

The Brethren's Advocate. 

Of the origin and purpose of this paper we have been 
unable to get any information outside of a note made of its pub- 
lication in Gospel Messenger, No. 2, 1879, which is as follows: 
" The Brethren's Advocate published at Waynesboro, Pa., by 
Brother D. H. Fahrney." The first number was published about 

2S 



354 CHURCH PUBLICATIONS 

the first of January, 1879, but how long it was continued and 
when and why it was discontinued we are not informed. 

The Gospel Preacher. 
This new candidate for church patronage was begun with 
the imputed purpose, " For the spreading of the Gospel," but 
more evidently, for the defense and upbuilding of Ashland 
College, as it had, for its publishers, the trustees of Ashland 
College, Ohio, and was published from that place. The first 
number was issued the first week of January, 1879. It was a 
four-page weekly at $1.00 per annum. In the beginning it was 
edited by Elders S. Z. Sharp and S. H. Bashor. At the end of 
six months. Elder Sharp resigned and Brother J. H. Worst 
was elected as assistant editor, with S. H. Bashor as editor-in- 
chief. Under this arrangement it was continued during 1879- 
80-81. In 1882 it was combined with the Progressive Christian 
and passed out of existence as a paper under the auspices of 
the members of the Brethren Church. 

Our Sunday School. 

The first number of this juvenile paper was published at 
Ashland, Ohio, dated March 26, 1879. Its editor and proprie- 
tor was Elder S. Z. Sharp, who had located at that place a 
year before, having been called there to take charge of Ashland 
College. The special object of this paper was for the use of 
our Sunday schools. To build up, encourage, and advance their 
interests, and to give a paper that would be, in a special way, 
adapted to their interests. From the beginning it met with en- 
couraging success, as Elder Sharp tells us that by the sixth 
number the circulation had reached about two thousand copies. 
In the fall of 79 Elder Sharp purchased the Children at Work 
and combined it with Our Sunday School. And in October of 
this same year The Young Disciple and Our Sunday School 
were consolidated and published at Ashland, Ohio, under the 
supervision of Elder S. Z. Sharp. 

In 1881 The Young Disciple is again published at Hunt- 



H. B. BRUMBAUGH 355 

ingdon, Pa., with Our Sunday School as a department, edited 
by Elder S. Z. Sharp. On February 6, of the same year Broth- 
er David Emmert was added to the editorial staff and so con- 
tinued until September 9, 1882, when his duties in Juniata Col- 
lege and the Orphans' Home made it necessary for him to 
withdraw, and in his place was added Sister Libbie Leslie, 
who very faithfully and fully performed the duty assigned to 
her, but, as in the early part of July 1883, she had to leave for 
her home in the West, the writer was again left as the sole 
editor of this much-changed paper. This will be the more 
fully appreciated when we tell you that in April, 1882, another 
juvenile paper published by Brother M. M. Eshelman, The 
Youth's Advance, was taken into its embrace, so that in the end 
it represented the consolidation of all the juvenile papers then 
published by the church. 

The Brethren's Quarterly. 
This Quarterly was first published in the year 1879 by 
Elder S. Z. Sharp and was the first one published by the 
church. He, as editor, continued the work for several years 
and was succeeded by Brethren L. Huber, James M. Neff, 
Lewis W. Teeter, and I. B. Trout. 

The Deacon. 
This was a small monthly paper published at Lewisburg, 
Pa., by P. H. Beaver, a deacon of the Buffalo Valley church. ' 
His avowed purpose in publishing the paper was " To be an 
exponent of apostolic church government and for the arresting 
and defeating the gradual and persistent usurpation of power 
by aspiring elders." But because of the radical manner in 
which the paper was conducted, it did not meet the approval 
of the church and failed to secure paying patronage, and after 
two years of unsuccessful effort, the publication of the Deacon 
was suspended and ended — thus showing that radical meas- 
ures never have been and we may add, never will be generally 
approved by the Brethren Church. 



356 CHURCH PUBLICATIONS 

The Gospel Messenger. 
In the Primitive Christian of June 19, 1883, under the 
head " Consolidation " we have the following : 

The subject of consolidation has been under consideration 
for several years, but on account of the many difficulties that 
seenred to be in the way, the matter was postponed from time to 
time until the present. We now inform our readers that here- 
after the "Primitive Christian" and the "Brethren At Work" 
will be published together, and that next week you can expect a 
new paper. What it will be you will see when it comes. 

This expected paper was the Gospel Messenger, pub- 
lished at Mt. Morris, Illinois, and Huntingdon, Pennsylva- 
nia, with Elder James Quinter, Chief Editor; J. H. Moore, 
OfBce Editor; and H. B. Brumbaugh, Eastern Editor, with 
Joseph Amick as Business Manager. 

The purpose of the consolidation was to be a matter of 
convenience and economy to both the publishers and readers, 
making one publishing house do the work of two before, one 
paper the reading and news of the two, and one paying give all 
that two gave before. As to the policy of the new paper, there 
was no change. The same editors were continued, having the 
same purpose in view. 

From the first number we extract from the Eastern Edi- 
tor's editorial the following: 

As the course pursued by the two papers, now consolidated, 
for the last year, was so nearly alike, but little change need be 
expected for the future. The true journalist must be neither bought 
nor sold, frowned upon nor flattered, from pursuing the course 
that his own judgment dictates to him as being right. Policy is 
said to be allowable for the politician, but for the Christian, never. 
The man who is willing to sacrifice for the sake of principle al- 
ways comes out best in the end. Upon this line we have started 
and upon this line, by the grace of God, we expect to fight it out. 
But while we stand fast in our own convictions, we, at the same 
time, feel it our duty to exercise due deference towards those 
who conscientiously differ from us. In doing this it frequently 
necessitates to submit our judgment to respect the opinions of 
others who may be equally conscientious of being right. This is 



H. B. BRUMBAUGH 357 

the principle which enables us to prefer one another, and at the 
same time, continue to labor with an eye single to the glory of 
God. 

This principle has been continued through the years, and 
we hope may continue, as we need men to fill all positions who 
have well-founded convictions of their own and who are 
neither ashamed nor afraid to stand by them. 

This consolidation proved to be the most desirable one yet 
made as it gave greater satisfaction to the patrons, and opened 
the way to turn the publishing interests over to the church. 

Missionary Advocate. 

An eight-page monthly published at Frederick City, Mary- 
land, by the Sisters' Aid Society with the following officers: 
Sister R. L. Rinehart, president and editor; Sister K. E. 
Fahrney, business manager and secretary; and Sister L. Sap- 
pington, treasurer. 

The first number was published in June, 1897, with the 
following purpose, as given by the editor in the first number: 

Having formed the nucleus of a Sisters Aid Society in the Ger- 
man Baptist Brethren Church, we, a few sisters of Frederick City, 
Md., have decided to send forth this little sheet, as our earnest 
appeal to other dear sisters in the Brotherhood, with the desire 
of awakening a combined and earnest effort to assist in the Mis- 
sionary cause. . . . Sisters are kindly solicited to contribute 
matter of interest pertaining to the cause, and to subscribe to the 
monthly at the small sum of .20 per year. It is further suggested 
that sisters contribute .05 each as a membership fee, entitling them 
to a vote as to the disposition of the fund hereafter, should suc- 
cess crown our humble efforts. In childlike simplicity we trust 
to God for the fruitage of this work of love. To further our ob- 
jects we have arranged for this paper to be published on a plan 
which greatly reduces the cost. We solicit a few advertisements 
to defray the cost, hoping to turn all income from subscriptions 
and membership fees into the missionary fund. 

Its publication was continued one year, but being dis- 
couraged by the Annual Conference, not wishing to have the 
missionary interests and work divided, it was discontinued, 



358 CHURCH PUBLICATIONS 

though the outlook for success to the publishers seemed promis- 
ing. 

The Landmark. 

The Landmark was an eight-page weekly, published at 
Warrensburg, Mo., with Howard Miller and John E. Mohler, 
as editors, and an Advisory Committee composed of Elders 
Levi Mohler, Amos Wampler, M. T. Baer, J. M. Mohler, and 
M. S. Mohler. The first issue appeared March 18, 1899. The 
purpose of its publication, as given in the first issue, was to 
retard the growing tendency toward concentration of power in 
the church, and the worldward drift of the church in manners 
and methods. 

The paper was discontinued with the issue of October 4, 
1899, upon the general understanding that the Gospel Mes- 
senger, the official church organ, should cover practically the 
ground advocated by The Landmark. 

This closes the history of the papers published by the 
church up to the time that, by the request of the Annual 
Conference, the whole publishing interest was turned over to 
the church. In reviewing the history of our church papers it 
is interesting to note the different periods in which they be- 
gan, and see how fully the manner in which religious in- 
spiration takes hold on the mind of church people corresponds 
with the inspiration that opens up and pushes the different 
phases of the business world. 

First, we start out in the field of experimenting. In this 
field few are ready to enter, but whenever success follows we 
have a rush of men and women ready to enter and fellowship 
in the reaping. So, it has been in our publishing interests, in 
our schools, our Sunday schools; our farmers in raising pota- 
toes, com, cattle, sheep, hogs, peaches, fruits, etc. Success in 
any line of business or work has a correspondingly large fol- 
lowing. 

In 1851 we have The Gospel Visitor, a monthly. In 1864 



H. B. BRUMBAUGH 359 

The Christian Family Companion, 3, weekly. These were ex- 
periments. In 1870, The Pilgrim, The Pious Youth, and the 
Vindicator first period. 

In 1876, The Primitive Christian, The Young Disciple, 
The Brethren's Messenger, The Brethren at Work, Der Bi'U' 
derhote, second period. 

In 1879, The Progressive Christian, The Brethren's Ad- 
vacate, the Gospel Preacher, Our Sunday School, The Breth- 
ren's Quarterly, The Deacon, and The Landmark, the third 
period. 

Thus it will be seen that almost all of our church papers 
were started in three periods of 1870, 1876, and 1879. Why 
this was so we are not now able to say, but no doubt there were 
church conditions existing in these years which made them 
favorable to the growth of papers. And, if so, such conditions 
should be studiously avoided in the future if we do not wish to 
have another crop of papers. 

As to book publishing, our people have done comparatively 
little, and as we have not at our command a complete list, we 
will only name such as come under our notice : 

Elder Peter Nead: Primitive Christianity, by Elder 
Peter Nead, was, perhaps, the first book published that comes 
within the scope of our present history. This was followed by 
Head's Theology and The Wisdom and Power of God. 

Elder Samuel Kinsey : The Pious Companion; The Par- 
able of the Supper; Forward and Backward Mode in Baptism; 
and Plain Remarks on Worldly Mindedness. 

Elder J. W. Beer: The Jewish Passover; The Lord's 
Supper; and A Summary of Religious Faith and Practice. 

Elder R. H. Miller: The Doctrine of the Brethren De- 
fended. 

Elder James Quinter: Trine Immersion; The Apos- 
tolic Mode of Baptism. There were also several of the Debates 
held by him published in book form. 

Elder D. L. Miller : Europe and Bible Lands; Wander- 



360 CHURCH PUBLICATIONS 

ings in Bible Lands; Sevejt Churches in Asia; Girdling the 
Globe; Eternal Verities; and The Other Half of the Globe. 

Sister D. L. Miller : Letters to Young People. 

Elder Lewis W. Teeter: A Commentary on the New 
Testament. 

Sister Adaline Hohf Beery : A Book of Poems. 

Dr. M. G. Brumbaugh: A History of the Brethren. 

Elder G. N. Falkenstein: A History of the German- 
town Church. 

Benjamin Funk : Life and Labors of Elder John Kline. 

Elder Galen B. Royer: Biographies for the Young, 
12 vols. 

Elder Landon West : Close Communion. 

Mary N. Quinter: Life and Sermons of Elder James 
Quint er. 

Elder George D. Zollers: Thrilling Incidents on Land 
and Sea. 

J. S. Flory: Literary Activity of the Brethren in the 
Eighteenth Century. 

Elder E. S. Young: Outlines of Life of Christ. 

Elder D. H. Zigler: History of the Brethren in Vir- 
ginia. 

Howard Miller: Record of the Faithful. 

Elder C. E. Arnold: Outlines on the Life of Christ. 

Elders S. F. Sanger and Daniel Hays: The Olive 
Branch. 

J. W. Wayland: The German Element of the Shenan- 
doah Valley. 

This closes the list of books so far as we have been able 
to get names and titles, and also ends the history of our pub- 
lications as far as we expected to give it at this time. 



Chapter Fourteen 
The Philanthropies of the Church 




Frank Fisher 



Part One 
The Church's Care for the Aged and Orphans 

By Frank Fisher 

In the introduction of our subject we will notice three 
prominent words : Aged, Orphans and Church. Many of you 
know well the meaning of the word '' Aged," for I read in your 
silver locks the definition in living experience. 

To meet old age, homeless and penniless, is a much sad- 
der side of the picture, and one you only can fully realize by 
experience. 

The word " Orphan " brings before us life in a different 
aspect: fatherless, motherless, homeless and helpless, with no 
one to pity and no one to love. Father gone and all that a 
father means to the home and child : mother no longer near to 
soothe the heart and satisfy the wants of the little one. A sad 
picture. 

The Church is God's subserving agency to lift up and 
save the world, a source of salvation, of divine refuge, of 
spiritual needs, and through it homes for the aged and orphans 
are to be furnished, the common needs of soul and body are 
to be supplied, comforts are to be increased, homes provided 
and rest assured, for in God's ideal theocracy, provisions have 
been made that all his needy ones shall be remembered and 
their wants supplied. 

Deuteronomy, 15, 7-11. If there be among you a poor man 
of one of thy brethren within any of thy gates in thy land which 
the Lord thy God giveth thee, thou shalt not harden thine heart, 
nor shut thine hand from thy poor brother; but thou shalt open 
thine hand wide unto him, and shalt surely lend him sufficient for 
his need, in that which he wanteth. 

Beware that there be not a thought in thy wicked heart, say- 
363 



364 THE AGED AND ORPHANS 

ing, The seventh year, the year of release, is at hand; and thine eye 
be evil against thy poor brother, and thou givest him nought; and 
he cry unto the Lord against thee, and it be sin unto thee. 

Thou shalt surely give him, and thine heart shall not be 
grieved when thou givest unto him; because that for this thing 
the Lord thy God shall bless thee in all thy words, and in all that 
thou puttest thine hand unto. 

For the poor shall never cease out of the land: therefore I 
command thee, saying, Thou shalt open thine hand wide unto 
thy brother, to thy poor, and to thy needy, in thy land. 

In this scripture is clearly seen God's fatherly provisions 
for the needy, vs. 7 and 8 ; and secondly, God's warning note to 
us for neglecting our duty toward the poor, v. 9 ; and thirdly, 
God's promised blessing to those who do their duty toward 
the poor, v. 10. 

This is only one of the many scriptures in God's Word, 
which reveals the golden thread of our Father's will toward his 
needy children. It is encouraging to know that frequent ref- 
erence is made in Holy Writ of God's purpose towards his de- 
pendent ones, so that the church may not mistake her duty 
in properly caring for and maintaining the aged and the 
orphans. 

These two classes of God's deserving children should draw 
heavily upon the sympathy of the church. God recognizes 
them as homeless and needy and at the mercy of the church. 

In the aged, the strength and vitality is gone, and with it 
the power of earning the necessary means of life ; Then fol- 
lows hunger, nakedness and poverty, thus coming to the sunset 
of life, not knowing where to turn for a little peace and the 
needs and wants attending the aged, they turn away in despair. 

Here the Father of the aged, at this turn in their lives, 
whispers into the ears of the church, saying : " If there be 
among you a poor man of one of thy brethren within any 
of thy gates in thy land which the Lord thy God giveth thee, 
thou shalt not harden thy heart, nor shut thine hand from thy 
poor brother." The Father of all richly provides for the 



FRANK FISHER 365 

poor and needy, which shall never cease out of our land, and 
that shall never be forgotten by the church, but she shall 
open her hands wide and give sufficient for their need. 

The Father's appeal for the needy should awaken the 
sacred feelings and affections of the church. As our Father 
can be touched with the feelings of our infirmities, poverty 
and desolation, so we his church should feel our brother's care 
and possess the Christ spirit, so like him, the sick we would 
seek to soothe, the hungry we would gladly feed, and thus lift 
up the heads of the downcast. 

The church should always show a responsive readiness 
in meeting the demands and needs of the aged. We should 
desire the operations of his grace upon our hearts, that we 
would willingly and cheerfully, as his representatives, show 
an aptness in comforting the needy. 

The church which makes the greatest provisions for the 
support and comfort of the poor should be highly exalted 
in Christendom and is in favor with God. 

There can no one thing give the church more real re- 
ligious splendor than its free, open-hearted charity, made man- 
ifest in caring for the helpless, aged fathers and mothers who 
know not where to turn for comfort in the decline of life. 

The Brethren Church has always, in harmony with God's 
purpose, provided homes for their poor members. In former 
years, the poor were given liberty to live with the members of 
the church, thus sharing the comforts and blessings of the 
Brethren's homes, staying for weeks and months at one place. 

Some churches would pay for the care and keeping of 
their dependent ones, which plan soon became ineffective be- 
cause of the difficulty in finding places. 

The late plan of building special homes for the dependent 
worthy members, was first introduced in the old Germantown 
congregation in 1770, when their old churchhouse was con- 
verted into an " Old Folks' Home " in which the dependent 
widows of that congregation were sheltered, iclothed and fed. 



366 THE AGED AND ORPHANS 

(Bro. Brumbaugh's History of the Brethren.) The Old Folks* 
Home seems not to have been considered practicable until 
about twenty-five years ago, when Southern Indiana in 1883 
established their Old Folks' Home. 

This system of caring for the poor has grown in favor un- 
til we now have thirteen Old Folks' Homes in various parts of 
our Brotherhood, which are speaking volumes in favor of the 
Brethren Church. In these Homes are 197 aged and help- 
less members that are enjoying the comforts of Christian 
homes in company with those of affiliating companionship. 
The maintaining of such Old Folks' Homes is of the highest 
and purest type of benevolence, it is truly unselfish, and should 
appeal to our emotions and claim our deepest sympathy and 
earnest support. 

The Church's Care for the Orphans. — Her Duty in Child- 
Training and Soid-Saving. 

Jeremiah, 49: 11. Leave thy fatherless children, I will pre- 
serve them alive; and let thy widows trust in me. 

Our heavenly Father does not only recognize the children 
but pleads for them, and asks that they may be given over to 
him : " Leave the fatherless children unto me and I will pre- 
serve them." 

Jesus, the gracious Master, realized the value of these 
precious souls, which are as diamonds set in earthen vessels, 
for he said, " Suffer the little children to come unto me and 
forbid them not for of such is the kingdom of heaven." 

Earth yields no production which is more beautiful and 
valuable than the living soul, especially as found in the in- 
nocent child. The human eye cannot rest upon a fairer picture, 
one upon which heaven offers no criticism, but holds it up to 
us as heaven's representative. 

Mark 10: 14. Suffer the little children to come unto me, and 
forbid them not; for of such is the kingdom of God. 



FRANK FISHER 367 

While the child, heaven's representative, wins us by its 
grace and heavenl}^ innocence we are confronted with the 
problem of its proper care and consideration. 

Who shall finally possess this beautiful soul, Christ or 
Satan? is one of the greatest problems that confronts us as 
the church of the living God. That God wants these bright 
jewels kept from the criminal power of Satan, there can 
be no doubt. We are positive that the rescuing of the wan- 
dering soul is easier in youth than at any other point along 
the battle line of life, therefore it becomes necessary for the 
church to organize her moral forces and lay hold more ear- 
nestly of this all-important problem of child-rescuing and soul- 
saving work. 

We are glad the church is awakening to her greatest 
opportunities and possibly her highest obligation, as a factor 
of God in rescuing the destitute and dependent children. 

We see a home blessed with rosy-cheeked children, spark- 
ling eyes, cheerful, gleeful spirits, not knowing a care nor a 
want, for an earthly father with loving heart and hand sup- 
plies all these. Finally there comes a day when affliction lays 
hold on father, his strength gradually fails, he reluctantly 
decides he must give up his life. He thinks of his soon to be 
fatherless and homeless children, and the fast-approaching 
widowhood of his dear wife. His eyes fill with tears. He can- 
not refrain from weeping. By his bedside stand his soon to be 
fatherless and homeless little ones. 

Now comes to him heaven's consolation through the 
church, for he remembers the words of the Father, " Leave thy 
fatherless children unto me and I will preserve them alive; 
and let thy widow trust in me." His cheerful, Christ-taught 
little ones are taken into a good home and kindly cared for, 
and reared in the nurture of the Lord. Friends seek for them 
for they are of Christian parentage, a heaven's rich blessing. 

Are we alive to our opportunities and obligations as a 
church, the instrument of God to carry out his will and pur- 



368 THE AGED AND ORPHANS 

pose to these fatherless and helpless needy ones? There is 
the un-Christian home, made desolate by sin and the debauch- 
ery of drunkenness, which is the most fruitful source of 
child suffering and depravity. Think of the thousands made 
miserable and homeless by the whisky demon with no one to 
pity, no home for shelter. These children are not wanted be- 
cause of their parentage not being of the highest type, or 
there is not the sparkle nor color in the eye desired, or the hair 
is not jet black or the disposition not so lovable. 

How particular we are ! What would become of us if 
God were as particular about those to be adopted into his fam- 
ily as we are about those we take into our families ? God is not 
so particular, but says '' Leave the fatherless children of the 
lowest and most despised unto me." Here again is the loving 
Father's care extended to them through the church, shown up 
in its greatest splendor. ^May the church extend her means 
and plans until thousands yearly find protection and care in 
good Christian homes where they can be clothed, fed, taught 
and reared in the nurture of the Lord. 

Our church was early indoctrinated in this great mis- 
sion, and it still remains a permanent principle in the church, 
as was evinced to us in the Orphans' Home work at Mex- 
ico, by the fact that for thirteen years there never was a child 
placed in our home whose parents were both members of 
the Brethren Church. 

The principle of caring for the dependent children is so 
fixed in our brethren and sisters that the homeless ones are 
cared for in private homes. I thank God for this, but it is not a 
tenth part of what we should be doing. We should reach out 
to the homeless and dependent outside of our Fraternity. 

Opportunities are opening all over our land. Let us seize 
them, broaden our lines, rescue the needy ones, and give them a 
taste of heaven's sweetness by placing them into Christian 
homes. 

This child-rescuing work is one of the most fruitful 



FRANK FISHER 369 

sources of doing mission work that we have in the church and 
least expense to the church. The child will soon drink in 
the Christian influences surrounding a Christian home, its 
impressive nature can be most easily reached in childhood, 
its daily surroundings make the beginning of religion easy. 
In its home life the child learns submission, confidence and 
love toward earthly parents, which makes it easy to teach 
and impress submission and confidence and love toward its 
heavenly parent. 

Many letters come to us bearing testimony to the hal- 
lowed results of the private Christian home training, stating 
that " Our little boy which we took from the Orphans' Home 
has given his heart to God ; " " Our little girl was among the 
converts in our late revival," and so the good word comes from 
the once homeless little ones. 

There are now five orphanages that are caring for four 
hundred children at this time, and all are expecting, we trust, 
to do more and greater work in rescuing and saving the chil- 
dren for the church and for Christ. 

The orphanage at Bulsar, India, is doing a great work in 
caring for her dependent children and teaching the truths of 
God's Word, bringing them from Hinduism unto the Christ 
life and faith. 

Our orphanages in America are placing a great number 
of children into Christian homes. We pray for the awaken- 
ing along this line of our church work and may many more or- 
phanages be established and more concerted efforts be put forth 
to promote this noble branch of our church work. 



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J. Ezra Miller 



Part Two 

The Gish Fund and the Care of Superannuated 
Ministers and Missionaries 

By J. Ezra Miller 

When I was notified that I was to speak on this topic, 
my mind went back to the morning of July 6, 1907, to the 
cemetery near Roanoke, IlUnois, where James R. Gish hes 
buried. And yet I should not say that he is buried there for 
it is merely his worn-out body that rests on the hillside while 
he, the real James Rufus Gish, lives in our church and in the 
world; his spirit rests in the beyond. To live is not merely 
to eat and drink, to sleep and walk and talk, to get and to hold. 
It is more than any and all of these combined. To live is to 
be an active vitalizing force in the community, in the church, 
in the State. To live is to make one's thoughts and words and 
deeds and talent and wealth talk for righteousness. Viewed 
from this angle, the world is full of the dead-living ; and on the 
other hand the grave does not yet hold many who are living- 
dead. 

As a boy I had read of his work especially in the South- 
west. As a minister, I had read the books that were sent out 
under the Gish Fund. As a member of the Gish Committee, 
I have been in touch with the several phases of that work as 
it appears from time to time. And as a result, I was anxious 
to see the place where he was laid to rest after his earthly 
pilgrimage was ended. Passing along the quiet streets of the city 
of the dead, I came to a granite stone and read : " James 
R. Gish, died April 30, 1896, Aged 70 yrs. 3 mos. 6 ds. Blessed 
are they that do his commandments." Beneath it all was an 

371 



372 THE GISH FUND 

open book across whose pages I read, " Holy Bible." Stand- 
ing in the hot July sun, I was made to think. 

The open Book ! How fitting that it should be on the mon- 
ument. He believed in an open Bible ; from it he had preached 
for many years ; by it he had lived and with his faith in it un- 
shaken he had died. Why then should it not be with him to 
mark not only his grave but also to tell the story of his life? 
And that old familiar scripture, " Blessed are they that do 
his commandments," could with all propriety be placed on his 
monument because he had always preached it and had made the 
doing of the commandments of the Saviour the rule of his life. 
He believed that the commandments were given for a pur- 
pose, that they are to be observed and that in keeping them 
there is a great blessing both now and in the hereafter. 

Rufus and Barbara Gish left Roanoke County, Virginia, 
in 1848, and in company with others, came by private convey- 
ance to the then Far West, Illinois. They were raised on the 
farm so it was but natural that they should choose the farm 
as their home, especially with the rich prairies of Illinois to 
select from. In 1852, they united with the Brethren Church 
and became active workers for the Master. In those days 
people did not come to the church at an age so early in life 
as now. 

Bro. Gish had only a limited education. Education is a 
power for good if rightly used — for evil if wrongly used. He 
is a striking example of what God can do with a man of 
limited education if only he is willing to be used. May we 
have more men with greater preparation, with more education, 
but over and above it all, may we have more men who will take 
their education, whether little or much, and use it for God's 
work as did Bro. Gish. He left his library as a perpetual 
legacy to the ministers of the Panther Creek church, Illi- 
nois. This was his home congregation. Here he was bap- 
tized, here he was called to the ministry and here his heart 
longed to be when he saw the end approaching. His was not 



J. EZRA MILLER 373 

an extensive library. There were probably about two hundred 
volumes in it. As I looked over them, I was made to think 
of that old and familiar saying, " Beware of the man of few 
books." For it is not so much the size of a library that counts, 
as the volumes that enter into its making and the use that is 
made of them. Too many of us have books to fill shelves, 
books to show; too few of us know what is in the books and 
know how to use them. Among his books, I was especially in- 
terested in a notebook in which he had jotted down points re- 
lating to the discussion of church doctrines. He, you will 
remember, was especially versed in our doctrines and knew 
how to defend them. He was above all a student of the Book, 
and therein lay his strength. 

Bro. Gish had the patience to work at a task even if re- 
sults were slow in coming. This seems to have been the 
characteristic of the man. In my office at Mount Morris College, 
there is a cane that is the workmanship of his own hands. It, 
perhaps, will illustrate his care as well as his skill in doing 
things. This cane was carved by his own hand. On it are 
thirty-one different figures, mostly animals. They are all in re- 
lief. Near the top I read these words, " This staff carved 
by James Rufus Gish of Roanoke County, Virginia, in the 
Year of Our Lord, 1847." Near the bottom of the staff he 
has inscribed, "Oct., the 6th, 1847." And this staff I* am in- 
formed was made in spare moments, while resting from farm 
duties, a little now and a little then. He must have had his 
special men, favorites whom he greatly admired, for halfway 
down the staff I find a soldier in uniform mounted on a pranc- 
ing steed and beneath these words, " Gen. Taylor." The man 
who will have the patience to labor with such pains and pa- 
tience to produce a piece of workmanship as artistic as that 
staff will also have the patience to engage in other work and 
labor, waiting for results should they not show on the spot. 

Bro. Gish was a successful business man. He had the fac- 
ulty of knowing whether a proposition was good or not. He 



374 THE GISH FUND 

had sufficient confidence in others to trust business matters to 
them and take them into partnership. He had that sterHng 
honesty that impressed others with the idea that they must 
deal fair and give a square deal at all times. He was espe- 
cially interested in locating ministers of limited means in new 
localities where land was cheap. He would select a com- 
munity where a minister was needed, purchase a farm and then 
sell it to the minister on terms that would enable him to pay 
for it as he could. In this way the minister secured a home, 
the community a good resident and the church a minister. 
Thus churches were built up and much good was accomplished. 
This was a practical, effective way of doing mission work. 
If those who have means, who are ever purchasing land 
in new countries, would follow this method our mission work 
might be materially advanced at small expense to the church, 
with little outlay to the men of means and with great blessing 
to all. 

But he was more than a business man. Amid his business, 
he found much time to preach the Gospel. In 1854 he and Sis- 
ter Gish drove to Virginia, the trip one way covering a period 
of six weeks. Every night they camped out. He preached 
much. After the Civil War he made a tour south, going as 
far as New Orleans, his mission being to prospect with a view 
of opening mission points. For, as he saw it, life was nothing 
if not missionary, and the church was not doing her duty 
merely to hold the territory she already had in her posses- 
sion. On another occasion, he and his wife mounted steeds 
and visited practically every church in Tennessee. They went 
horseback, mule back, and often they walked. He always went 
at his own expense. He lived and worked in a day when our 
mission work was not so well organized. We err, however, 
if we think that mission work was not done in those days. 

For many years he labored in Arkansas. In all his work, 
his wife was an able assistant. He looked after the preach- 
ing and she led in the singing. In house to house visitation, 



J. EZRA MILLER 375 

she was ever helpful, and side by side they toiled for many 
years. He had a way of going at things direct. I remember 
once while he was attending a Bible Institute at our college, 
the bell rang for dismissing classes while the class he was in 
was in the midst of a warm discussion. He felt that it would 
be profitable to continue the discussion, but the room was need- 
ed for another class. It took him only a few moments to make 
up his mind as to what should be done and that was this : 
He would give five hundred dollars toward a new building 
so that when ministers wanted to remain and discuss a question 
they might have a room from which they would not be driven 
by the ringing of a bell, simply because the lack of room 
made it necessary for another class to enter at once. 

To every labor there comes an end. And the end was 
approaching to the labors of Bro. Gish. When it comes, 
whether soon or late matters little. Where it finds us, whether 
east or west, north or south, at home or abroad, matters lit- 
tle. How much wealth we have makes little difference. The 
grave knows no millionaires. Death stretches us all out on a 
common level. In the beyond, neither wealth nor poverty 
will of themselves put us on one side or the other of the im- 
passible gulf that has been eternally fixed. But how we have 
lived, how we have spent our talent, how death finds us, what 
disposition we make of our wealth, these are matters that do 
concern us vitally. 

We have seen what Bro. Gish did while he lived. Let us 
now see what he thought of as he saw the end approaching. 
His wealth was estimated at about fifty thousand dollars. 
Knowing that he must soon go, he arranged for his funeral. 
On February 12, 1896, Bro. J. H. Moore, while at work in the 
Messenger office received a card stating that Bro. Gish wished 
him to preach his funeral and that he should hold himself in 
readiness. On February 17, he made a will and turned all 
his property over to his beloved wife without any instructions 
as to what she should do with it. She had been his life com- 



376 THE GISH FUND 

panion, his co-laborer in every work, his assistant on all oc- 
casions. To her, as much as to himself, belonged the credit 
for whatever success he may have attained. Naturally, as 
there were no children, he thought of her as the one to whom 
to give his property. He died on April 30, at Stuttgart, Ar- 
kansas. He was brought back to Illinois for burial. 

The funeral over, Sister Gish found herself in charge of 
an immense business. To manage the estate was no small 
task. Especially was that true of one of her age. What to do 
and how to do was a serious problem. To be made the sole 
steward of that wealth was a tremendous responsibility, con- 
sidering that she felt herself responsible to make the very best 
use of it. She felt the need of an adviser, of one who would 
manage her business for her, and selected Bro. Philip A. 
Moore as the man. But he plead his age as a very good reason 
why he should not assume such a great responsibility. He 
talked the matter over with his nephew. Eld. J. H. Moore, 
and between them they agreed that Bro. Thomas Keiser, a 
minister-farmer living near Roanoke, would be the best man 
for the place. They conferred with Aunt Barbara and she 
approved of the suggestion. In due time, Bro. Keiser was ap- 
pointed to manage the estate for her. 

To hold in her own name so great an amount of wealth 
weighed heavily on Sister Gish. To possess wealth was 
nothing ; but to make the right use of it was everything. She 
did not need it all, and her great concern was to make what 
she did not need, a blessing to others. This she made known 
to Philip A. Moore. He told it to J. H. Moore and that set 
the latter to think. Some men are so constituted that when 
they think results are sure to follow. It was so in this case. 

In the winter of 1896-7, Bro. Thomas Keiser came to 
Mt. Morris College to visit his son. He told Editor Moore 
about Sister Gish's concern about her property. She had 
been unable to come to any definite conclusion. Bro. Moore 
outlined a policy by which the money could be used to furnish 



J. EZRA MILLER 377 

books for our ministers, outlining in the main the plan of 
what is now known as the Gish Fund. The idea struck 
Bro. Keiser favorably and he carried it to Aunt Barbara 
when he returned to his home. She was so favorably im- 
pressed with the idea that Bro. Moore was invited to Roanoke 
to talk matters over. After hearing all fully and discussing 
the several phases of the plan at some length, she said she 
would think it over until the Annual Meeting at Frederick, Mary- 
land. At that meeting she talked the matter over with the 
General Missionary Committee, but wanted still further time 
to decide definitely on her plans. 

At this point matters hung for the time being. A little item 
of church news written by Bro. Chas. B. Smith of Red Cloud, 
Nebraska, appearing in the Gospel Messenger of December 
18, 1897, page 811, put things on the way again. And yet Bro. 
Smith had not the least idea that he was doing anything of im- 
portance. The clause in his news item that I refer to said 
that " Aunt Barbara Gish " had been there and had gone to 
Burr Oak, Kansas. Bro. Moore immediately wrote to Bro. 
Daniel Vaniman of McPherson, Kansas, who was then in the 
employ of the General Mission Board, to go and see Aunt 
Barbara and perhaps she would be ready to consummate the 
work. Bro. Vaniman went and found that he had come at an 
opportune moment. Bro. Keiser was wired to come at once 
with all of Sister Gish's papers. He came and at Burr Oak, 
Kansas, December 13, 1897, Sister Gish signed the papers 
turning over to the General Missionary and Tract Committee 
the bulk of her property, and the Gish Fund was made a 
reality. 

Such, in brief, is the story of how the church became the 
possessor of this fund, and these are the brethren and sister 
who were actors in the affair. I have told it partly that all 
might know how it was done, and partly to inspire others, 
so that they too, may be able to make the best use of the 
means that come into their hands. For we are only stewards, 



378 THE GISH FUND 

and be assured we must give an account of our stewardship. 
When Sister Gish made this liberal donation, she secured for 
herself an annuity of one thousand dollars a year, certainly 
not a large amount considering what she has given. 

I come now to the use that is made of this fund. You will 
understand that only the income can be used. This, though 
furnishing a smaller amount annually, insures a permanency 
that could not be had otherwise, and is certainly the better way, 
despite the cry of some that the church should not carry en- 
dowments. 

The General Missionary and Tract Committee put out the 
first book in 1899. This was Bro. Quinter's Trine Immersion. 
One thousand copies were put out into circulation that year. 
The same year a committee, with J. H. Moore as foreman, was 
appointed to draw up a set of rules for regulating the selec- 
tion and distribution of books. The following report was sub- 
mitted and adopted: 

Gish Publishing Fund. 

Section 1. Name. — The name of this fund shall be the Gish 
Publishing Fund. 

Section 2. Fund. — This fund shall consist of the estate of 
James R. and Barbara Gish, estimated value, $50,000; with any 
other funds that may hereafter be added to it. 

Section 3. Purpose. — The purpose of this fund shall be to sup- 
ply the ministers of the German Baptist Brethren Church with 
such books and other printed matter as may be helpful to them 
in advancing and maintaining the Truth. 

Section 4. Supervision. — The General Missionary and Tract 
Committee shall appoint a committee of three, so arranged in term 
of office that the time of one member expires each year, whose 
duty it shall be 

(a) To examine and pass upon publications issued and dis- 
tributed by this fund. 

(b) To arrange with the Publication Department for publica- 
tion and distribution of publications selected. 

Section 5. Surplus. — Any surplus on hand at the end of the 
fiscal year of the General Missionary and Tract Committee shall, 
after proper allowance has been made for selected books not yet 



J. EZRA MILLER 379 

published, be turned over to the fund for superannuated and dis- 
abled ministers and missionaries: but should it not be needed in 
said fund, then it shall be given to the World-wide Mission Fund. 

Section 6. Terms. — The publications shall be distributed free 
or at greatly reduced rates, at no time the price asked being more 
than the cost of publication, including the expense for delivery. 

Section 7. Report. — The General Missionary and Tract Com- 
mittee shall cause to be published an annual report of the fund, 
including the list of books published and the number of copies 
distributed each year. 

A committee was appointed consisting of the following: 
J. H. Moore, L. T. Holsinger, and A. H. Puterbaugh. There 
have been six different members of the committee up to the 
present date. Their names and periods of service have been: 
J. H. Moore 1899-1905; A. H. Puterbaugh 1899-1903; L. T. 
Holsinger 1899-1906; J. E. Miller 1904- ; J. W. Wayland 
1906- ; Grant Mahan 1907- . Usually the committee meets once 
a year, but they are regulated some by convenience in getting 
together, actuated by the thought that it is not well to spend 
too much money in traveling. Only the necessary traveling 
expenses and postage used in furthering the interests of the 
Gish Fund are paid. 

From a report kindly furnished by the Secretary of the 
General Mission Board I learn that thirty books have been 
published or handled. Beginning with one book in 1899, and 
it having a circulation of one thousand, the past year has 
seen twenty-six books handled and more than six thousand 
volumes placed into the hands of our ministry. The follow- 
ing table is complete. 



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J. EZRA MILLER 381 

The expenses of the work fall under three general heads. 
The following is a full record. 

Year Books Super. Min. Com. Expense 

1899 400 00 

1900 1544 83 500 00 9 40 

1901 3407 34 50 55 

1902 1987 11 124127 18 95 

1903 4145 19 981 49 14 00 

1904 2572 32 827 55 8 95 

1905 2354 63 512 80 3 42 

1906 1702 39 772 91 45 43 

1907 2667 12 530 33 49 55 

1908 3459 75 681 91 

Totals 24241 28 6048 26 198 25 

Our ministers are aided both with books and in support. 
Nine ministers have been assisted financially, five of whom 
have passed to the beyond. The following is a copy of the 
rules governing this work: 

Ministerial and Missionary Relief Fund. 

This fund shall be used for the support of aged and infirm 
missionaries and ministers in good standing in the German Bap- 
tist Brethren Church, who may be left without other means of 
support. It shall be under the management of the General Mis- 
sionary and Tract Committee. 

The fund shall be composed of 20 per cent of the Gish Fund, 
20 per cent of the earnings of the Brethren Publishing House an- 
nually set apart for mission work, cash donations, income from 
endowments either by direct bequest, gift or on the Annuity Plan 
and by money received from those who enjoy a full support from 
the Fund. 

No one shall receive aid from said fund who is able to support 
himself, or who has sufficient income to keep him in a comfortable 
home and afford him the necessaries of life, or who has sons or 
daughters who are able and willing to give the aid sought. 

No one shall receive full support from the fund unless all 
money, or property that he may have be turned over to the Com- 
mittee to be invested and the interest used for the aid of bene- 
ficiaries of the Fund. If the beneficiary is in possession of a home 
he shall deed it to the Committee for endowment, retaining use of 



382 THE GISH FUND 

same for himself and widow, if he leave one, during their lifetime. 

In order to receive aid from the fund application must be made 
to the congregation in which the one desiring aid has his mem- 
bership. The applicant must have served the church faithfully 
as a missionary or minister and must be in good standing in the 
church when the application is made. 

It shall be the duty of the congregation to carefully investi- 
gate the needs of the applicant, his means of support and property 
owned by him and if the applicant comes within and complies with 
the rules governing the fund, a formal application may be made, 
signed by the elder in charge of the church and by at least one 
minister or deacon. This shall be made on printed blanks to be 
furnished by the Secretary of the Committee. No application for 
aid will be considered unless made on blanks supplied for that 
purpose. 

Upon the death of the beneficiary the aid shall cease unless he 
leave a widow who shall receive such aid from the fund as the 
church in which she lives may consider her entitled to. Widows 
of missionaries and ministers may receive aid from the fund under 
the rules provided for their husbands. 

The Committee shall not incur any indebtedness on account 
of the fund and may only grant aid when there is money on hand 
to p^y the required amount. 

So much for what has been done. What of the future? 
There has been no addition to this fund except the contribu- 
tion that comes each year from the Publishing House. Yes- 
terday a good brother told me that he had remembered the 
Gish Fund in his will. God bless him for it. May others do 
likewise. And yet there is still a better way. Turn over the 
money to the Mission Board, receive your annuity for it as 
long as you live, and when you are called home, there will 
be no question about a broken will. Yes, we need more money 
to carry on this work. This year we have overdrawn to the 
amount of five hundred dollars. Will you not be the one to 
increase the fund so well begun by Sister Gish ? 

But I must not detain you longer. Many of you cannot 
hear me. And even if you could, I would not be able to say 
anything that would inspire you half as much as what I can 



J. EZRA MILLER 883 

show you. I see here oji the platform Aunt Barbara GIsh and 
if she will be so kind as to come forward, I will allow her and 
what she has so nobly done to be the close of my address. 



Chapter Fifteen 
Our Pioneer Preachers 




y. //. Moore 



Chapter Fifteen 
Our Pioneer Preachers 

By J. H. Moore 

I am to talk to you about the pioneer preachers of the 
Church of the Brethren. I cannot name all of our worthy 
pioneer ministers, for there were a number of them, and the 
noble deeds and the sacrifices they made are worthy of honor- 
able mention on the pages of history. I am glad, however, 
that I am permitted to tell you of a few of them. 

In a sense John the Baptist was a pioneer preacher. He 
went before and prepared the people for the preaching and 
work of Christ and the apostles. He was a strong man. It 
is said that among those born of woman, there has not risen 
a greater than John the Baptist. 

It requires a strong man to go out on the frontier 
and command the attention and respect of people who have 
been trained to do their own hard thinking, especially so 
when the purpose is a moral or religious reformation. 

We have had our pioneers in the interest of civilization, 
education and religion, but my subject, on this occasion, is 
the men who, as advance workers, have figured in the inter- 
est of the religious reform, represented by the Church of the 
Brethren, — the men among us who have gone before and 
opened up the way for others to follow. 

A talk of this kind should contain something about Alex- 
ander Mack, the first minister and elder in the Church of the 
Brethren. He was not a pioneer preacher in the sense we 
employ the term in this country, but as a strong man, a fine, 
forcible thinker, a man of conviction, he led out, and made 

387 



388 OUR PIONEER PREACHERS 

it possible for others to labor for the return to the New Tes- 
tament order of worship. 

Alexander Mack was a German ; he was born in Germany 
in 1678, and by pious parents educated in the Presbyterian 
faith. His parents appear to have been in easy financial cir- 
cumstances, and left to their son considerable property. He 
also seems to have received a good education. 

At the age of twenty-one he married, and soon afterwards 
settled at Schwarzenau. Not satisfied with the religion that 
came to him from his parents, he began a careful study of the 
Bible for himself and soon discovered that the churches known 
to him failed to observe a number of the plain commands set 
forth in the New Testament. He studied history and made an 
effort to find a body of people that obeyed that form of doc- 
trine delivered unto the saints. 

For a time he identified himself with the Separatists, and 
later became a Pietist, and in the meantime did considerable 
preaching, visiting many of the cities and villages in his part 
of Germany. Thus he continued for several years, studying, 
preaching, and praying for more light. He was thus paving 
the way for his reformatory movement, in a manner that 
he did not at first fully comprehend. 

Finally, with seven others, including his wife, it was 
agreed to begin to worship God, as they understood the New 
Testament, with the full purpose of accepting more light as it 
came to them. So, early one morning, the eight Bible students 
went quietly to the river Eder, near by, and were baptized. 
One of the brethren, who had been selected by lot, baptized 
Mack, and he baptized the rest. Then they organized, selected 
Mack for their minister, and thus the apostolic order of wor- 
ship was restored. 

Mack was then twenty-nine years old. He appears to have 
been a speaker of considerable ability, a clear, logical thinker 
and a man who understood his Bible, as well as the people 
among whom he labored. To him the way was open for a 



J. H. MOORE 389 

great and grand religious work. He knew that he had taken 
his stand on the Gospel platform, and he could clearly see 
the light of heaven and revelation shining upon the well- 
defined path before him. 

With this strong, religious conviction, he threw his whole 
soul into the work for which God had chosen him. The peo- 
ple heard him gladly, and flocked to his standard by the score. 
Churches were organized and other godly men were called to 
the ministry. Mack not only preached but he wrote books and 
took an active part in the printing of a German Bible, for which 
enterprise he is thought to have furnished considerable money. 

But his work was of too high a type, and his influence as a 
preacher, writer and reformer too great, to escape the attention 
of those in authority at the instigation of the state heirarchy. 
Persecution arose. Many of his members, including some of 
his earnest ministers, were cast into prison. Mack and his 
strong band of devout followers were compelled to leave the 
village and vicinity of Schwarzenau, and seek safety in Hol- 
land. 

Others heard of America, the then new and unsubdued 
country beyond the great Atlantic. In 1719 Peter Becker, 
another noble Christian man, worthy of special mention, ac- 
companied by a large body of members, emigrated to America, 
and settled at Germantown, Pa. His company consisted of 
twenty families, aggregating about one hundred souls. This 
was our first effort at mission work by emigration, and Peter 
Becker was the leader. Ten years later, in 1729, he was fol- 
lowed in a chartered ship by Alexander Mack, and a still larger 
body of members. 

For ten years Peter Becker had looked after the interest 
of the transplanted church in America. To him it was a new 
experience. Generally speaking, he was not especially gifted 
as a minister and leader, but he was a devout man, an inspiring 
leader of song, and able in prayer. He was a safe shepherd, 
and while not aggressive, he did what he could to hold the 



390 OUR PIONEER PREACHERS 

little body of believers together. For the coming generations, 
he laid the foundation of the Church of the Brethren in Amer- 
ica, and, probably, for the time builded better than he and 
others thought. 

When Mack came here he at once took the general over- 
sight of the members at Germantown and the outlying sections, 
and, to some extent, brought order out of confusion, and placed 
the church in America on a better footing. Wherever he went 
he inspired confidence and added stability to the work. 

Still he could not give the time and attention to the propa- 
gation of his views and to the care of the churches, as he 
would have liked to do. In Germany he was a man of wealth, 
but persecution, the paying of fines for imprisoned members, 
and the expense of reaching the New World, had consumed 
his splendid estate, and he reached Germantown a poor man in 
this world's goods, but rich in faith and grace. After six 
years of arduous labors, and at the age of only fifty-six years, 
he fell asleep in Jesus and was laid to rest. This happened 
one hundred and seventy-three years ago. 

I cannot pause here to tell you more of Alexander Mack. 
Suffice it to say that he was a devout man, a keen, clear- 
headed thinker, a logical reasoner, an impressive, able and 
earnest preacher, a self-sacrificing shepherd, a safe leader, and 
a man who was honest with his Bible and honest with his 
God. 

Time fails me to tell you much about Peter Becker, the 
man to head our first missionary movement in colonization. 
He was noted as a sweet singer, the composer of a number of 
hymns, and a self-sacrificing shepherd. While he could not 
arouse his hearers with inspiring sermons, he knew how to 
comfort and edify them with his songs, and how to console 
them in his earnest pleadings with God at the golden gate of 
prayer. 

I cannot take the time to tell you of Alexander Mack, Jr., 
the prudent elder of the Germantown church, who lived until 



J. H. MOORE 391 

1803, nor of Eld. Christopher Sower, the able preacher, pub- 
lisher and editor. I am not to tell you of such able and de- 
vout preachers as John Umstad, John KHne, D. P. Sayler, B. F. 
Moomaw, James Quinter, Peter Nead, John Meztger and 
James R. Gish, all of whom had more or less experience in 
pioneer work. I might stand here and talk for hours about the 
labors, ventures, trials and achievements of these godly men. 

I am not even to tell you of the labors of such pioneer 
preachers as John Garber and Jacob Miller, who spied out 
the fertile valleys of Virginia about the time of the Revolu- 
tionary War, and opened up the way for the establishing of 
some of the largest, the most loyal and the best equipped 
churches in the Brotherhood. 

I am not to tell you how Alexander Mack ordained Daniel 
Leatherman, who in turn ordained David Martin, who, in a 
very early day, left Pennsylvania and located in South Car- 
olina. This Bro. Martin ordained Joseph Rowland, who be- 
came a pioneer preacher of note, and in his rounds ordained 
Isham Gibson in Kentucky, when he was about twenty-three 
years old. 

Bro. Rowland then moved into Illinois and settled in Mor- 
gan County. He was soon followed by the young elder he had 
ordained in Kentucky. That was the beginning of the strong 
churches that grew up in Morgan, Sangamon, Macoupin and 
Bond counties. All of this was the work of pioneer preachers, 
men of nerve and brain, whose histories have never been writ- 
ten. 

I must leave practically untouched the labors and achieve- 
ments of these God-fearing men, who braved the hardships and 
privations of pioneer life, that they might open up a new coun- 
try for civilization and education, and lay the foundation for 
churches that would bear aloft the banner of King Emmanuel. 

I now proceed to tell you of a typical pioneer preacher, 
who did much in opening up the West to our people, and left 
behind him an influence that is still molding sentiment. I refer 



392 OUR PIONEER PREACHERS 

to Elder George Wolfe, of Adams County, Illinois, who passed 
to his reward in 1865, at the age of eighty-five years. I 
wish to help you to take a good look at this marvelous man, 
for he was a giant physically, intellectually and spiritually. He 
stood over six feet high, weighed about two hundred and 
seventy-five pounds, had large, strong limbs, broad shoulders, 
a deep chest, and carried a head unusual for its size and strik- 
ing appearance. 

Wherever he went, he impressed the people as one of a 
higher type than the common run of even intellectual men, — 
one entitled to more than ordinary attention and respect. Sen- 
ator Richardson, of Quincy, 111., who was personally acquainted 
with him, and knew him for years, said that he regarded Eld. 
Wolfe as the profoundest thinker the State ever produced. 

Though a man of little schooling, in our way of estimating 
scholarship, he could talk on the most difficult mental problems 
with the ease and grace of an accomplished scholar. He knew 
his Bible as few men understood the Book, was a close and 
an extensive reader, as well as a profound reasoner and a bom 
logician. 

As an orator, in the pulpit or on the platform, he is said 
to have had but few, if any, equals in all this western country. 
He kept himself well informed in the news of the day, and few 
men were better read in political economy than Eld. Wolfe. 
In conversation he was perfectly at home in history, politics, 
moral science and religion, but always preferred to discourse 
on religous or moral questions. 

Eld. Wolfe was born in 1780, in Lancaster County, Penn- 
sylvania. This was before the close of the Revolutionary War. 
His father before him was an elder in the Church of the Breth- 
ren, and was born about 1750. He was doubtless acquainted 
with Alexander Mack, Jr., and knew much of Christopher 
Sower and his publishing interests at Germantown. 

In 1787, when his son George was seven years old, Eld. 
Wolfe moved west of the Alleghany Mountains, and settled in 



J. H. MOORE 393 

Fayette County, Pennsylvania, about ten miles west of Union- 
town. Here he labored for thirteen years, and is said to have 
established the Uniontown church. 

In 1800 he and his two sons, Jacob and George, respective- 
ly twenty-three and twenty years old, built a large flatboat on 
the Monongahela River, loaded all their substance thereon, 
floated down to the Ohio River, and continued their journey 
down the Ohio until Green River, Kentucky, was reached. 
They seem to have passed up this river and settled in Miihlen- 
berg County, where there were other members at the time they 
arrived. 

In this part of Kentucky, Eld. Wolfe aided in building up 
several large congregations. He also visited and preached for 
the members in the southeastern part of Missouri and Southern 
Illinois, for at thi^ early date there were members in this sec- 
tion of the untamed West. 

Three years after settling in Kentucky with his father, 
young George Wolfe, then twenty-three years old, was married, 
and five years later, accompanied by his brother Jacob, moved 
into Illinois, then a sparsely-settled territory, and located forty 
miles north of Cairo, in what is now known as Union County. 

Four years later, 1812, Bro. George Wolfe and a number 
of others were baptized. He was called to the ministry a few 
months later and ordained to the eldership the next year. Our 
pioneer preachers in those days were not slow about ordain- 
ing young ministers to the eldership. When ordained to the 
eldership, Bro. Wolfe was thirty-two years old and seems to 
have entered upon the work of the ministry with rare zeal and 
skill. 

The country was then wild. There were no railroads, and 
all the traveling had to be done by stage, boat or on horseback. 
Bro. Wolfe did the most of his traveling on horseback, riding 
hundreds of miles on a trip. He often visited the churches in 
Southwestern Missouri, and in 1818 ordained James Hendricks, 
the first elder ever ordained west of the Mississippi River. He 



394 OUR PIONEER PREACHERS 

frequently visited the churches in Kentucky, and also preached 
in Kaskaskia, which was at that time the capital of the Ter- 
ritory of Illinois. 

It was here, in this capital city, that he held a debate with a 
learned Catholic priest, and the discussion lasted several days. 
The governor of the territory listened to the debate from start 
to finish, and afterwards said that, for an uneducated man, 
Bro. Wolfe was the profoundest reasoner he ever heard. 

In 1818 Illinois became a State with her own constitution. 
In the framing of this constitution, an attempt was made to 
insert a clause endorsing slavery. Eld. Wolfe, then in the 
strength of his manhood, as a preacher widely known and 
everywhere respected, took his stand against this clause, and 
a writer in one of the Quincy papers, Nov. 21, 1865, says, that 
Eld. Wolfe did more to prevent Illinois becoming a slave 
State than any other man in the State. 

While there were few men better read in the political his- 
tory of the country, he refused to be known as a politician. 
He went to the polls and quietly voted his sentiment, always 
carrying about him the dignity of a devout preacher of the Gos- 
pel. 

But when there was a great moral question before the peo- 
ple, like the attempt to insert the slavery clause in the constitu- 
tion, and make of Illinois a slave State, he threw his powerful 
influence and ability on the side of right and helped to make 
Illinois the home of the free. And for this noble act, just at a 
time when his aid was needed, he deserves to be classed with 
Lincoln and others, who labored for the abolition of slavery. 

In the early part of his ministry. Eld. Wolfe had another 
experience that identifies the man, as a pioneer in the history of 
the State. With a Baptist minister he engaged in a union meet- 
ing in Jonesboro, Illinois. They took their turns in preaching, 
and people came far and near to hear the sermons. When the 
meeting closed, the two men stood on the platform, in the 
presence of a large concourse of people, and shook hands. The 



J. H. MOORE 395 

scene made such a profound impression that an engraver was 
employed to make for Union Count}^ a seal, showing the two 
men, standing with clasped hands, and now every time the 
county seal is affixed to a legal document. Eld. Wolfe is shown 
as he was seen on the platform, at the close of the union meet- 
ing in Jonesboro. I happen to have in my possession a few 
impressions made by this seal. 

In 1831, at the age of fifty-one, having been preaching 
nineteen years. Eld. Wolfe removed to Adams County, Illi- 
nois, and located on a large farm in a beautiful section of the 
county, eighteen miles southeast of Quincy. He soon gathered 
about him a large body of members and fed them from week 
to week on the Bread of Life that Cometh down from above. 
It was a treat to hear him expound the Scriptures, and fine 
thinkers would come for many miles to listen to his profound 
reasoning and artless eloquence. 

A minister who knew him in those days, and often heard 
him preach, says : " His manner of speech, like his presence, 
was commanding, yet as gentle as a child. His language was 
simple, easily understood by even a child, and yet a philosopher 
would listen to it spellbound. I have heard him preach two 
hours, but never knew any one to leave the congregation be- 
cause he was not interested. In some respects he was the 
grandest preacher I ever heard. I never saw a man who sat 
under his artless eloquence but what rose up with the feeling, 
' I will be a better man.' He was the most highly reverenced 
man I ever saw." 

He traveled much and preached in Iowa and Indiana, as 
well as in his own State. Clad in a large, waterproof over- 
coat, with a cape hanging nearly to his waist, and wearing a 
large, broad-brimmed hat, his saddle bags containing his Bible 
and a few clothes, he would mount his horse and ride for days, 
from one part of the State to another, telling the simple story of 
the cross as few men have been able to tell it. 

He often visited Macoupin County, Illinois, where Eld. 



396 OUR PIONEER PREACHERS 

Isham Gibson then resided, and had charge of a large congre- 
gation. He always made the trip on horseback, crossing the 
Illinois River at Naples. In 1858, the ferryman of Naples, in 
speaking of Eld. Wolfe, said : *' I have ferried that man over 
this river nearly every year for twenty-five years." 

He preached in Morgan, Sangamon, Fulton and Pike 
counties. He also made a few trips into Northern Illinois, and 
was present when the Annual Meeting was held at Waddams 
Grove in 1856. He was the first minister of the Church of 
the Brethren to visit and preach for the members who first set- 
tled in Fulton County. Then, in turn, the elders of Fulton 
County were the first to visit the few members in Woodford 
County, baptize James R. Gish and wife, organize the church, 
install Bro. Gish into the ministr}% and thus make possible what 
is now known as the Gish Fund. 

I am telling you these things to show what an earnest mis- 
sionary worker we had in this pioneer preacher of the West. 
He probably did more traveling and preaching on the frontier 
than any other preacher of his generation in the Church of the 
Brethren, and it was all done at his own expense. 

He was an able defender of the faith, and frequently meas- 
ured swords with those who differed from him, and challenged 
him for a discussion. He never sought a public discussion, 
but could not let a challenge go by unnoticed. He believed in 
the doctrines of the church, understood them thoroughly, and in 
his discourses could treat doctrinal subjects in a most masterly 
and convincing manner. 

Settling in the Far West in an early day, while Indiana, 
Illinois, Missouri and Iowa were yet territories, he and his 
Brethren became separated from the churches in the East for 
over fifty years. In the meantime, some differences naturally 
grew up betwen them. Wolfe and those who stood with him 
in the West, viz., the churches in Southeastern Missouri, Union, 
Adams, Hancock, Macoupin, Morgan and Bond counties, 
practiced the single mode of feet-washing, had no intermission 



J. H. MOORE 397 

between the Lord's supper and the communion service, and 
accorded the sisters the same privilege enjoyed by the brethren 
in the breaking of the bread and the passing of the cup. 

When the Gospel Visitor started in 1851, Wolfe and the 
Editor, Eld. Henry Kurtz, exchanged views on these points, 
and that gave rise to a controversy on the mode of the religious 
rite of feet-washing, which finally resulted in all the churches in 
the Brotherhood changing from the double to the single mode, 
as we now call our present method. As for the intermission 
between the supper and the communion, and the sisters enjoy- 
ing the same privilege as do the brethren, in the breaking of 
the bread and the passing of the cup, we are still discussing 
these questions. It will be interesting for you to know that 
Eld. Wolfe always maintained that these were the original 
practices of the church, and as such were brought by his fa- 
ther, and others, from the East into the wilds of the West. It 
will thus be seen that we have not yet gotten away from the in- 
fluences that this remarkable man wielded among the churches 
while he was living. 

Eld. Wolfe was not only a pioneer preacher, but he was a 
pioneer citizen. He helped to open up the great West, helped 
to lay the foundation of the State of Illinois, and then he helped 
to build up churches at a time when there were but a few able 
ministers in the country. He was happily equipped for nearly 
every department on the frontier life, and nobly did his part in 
making the world better than he found it when he cast his lot 
in the Far West. 

His talent was recognized by his countrymen on every 
hand, wherever he was known. He was urged to permit his 
name to go before a State Convention as a nominee for gov- 
ernor, but he declined all political honors, telling his friends 
that he was a preacher of the Gospel, and not a politician. He 
had his political convictions, and defended them when neces- 
sary, but he never turned aside from his Father's business in 
order to accept the honors of the world. 



398 OUR PIONEER PREACHERS 

He lived the noble Christian life, moved among his people 
as a father, at all times commanding their respect and even 
their reverence, and died the death of the righteous. He was 
one of the noblest of men, and, had he been favored with a 
thorough education in his early life, he might have gone down 
in history as one of the most profound thinkers of his day and 
generation. 

Few preachers ever impressed people as Eld. Wolfe im- 
pressed them. It is said that no man ever swore in his pres- 
ence. Eld. Samuel Lahman, of Northern Illinois, who once 
spent nearly one week in Bro. Wolfe's congregation, one time 
said, he never before saw a man who could better manifest the 
spirit of Christ in his general deportment than did Eld. Geo. 
Wolfe. 



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